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IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD! 



OR, 



A MANUAL 



BIBLE EVIDENCE FOR THE PEOPLE. 



BY THE 

REV. JOHN GUMMING, D.D. 

MINISTER OF THE SCOTTISH NATIONAL CHURCH, CROWN COURT, 
LITTLE RUSSEL STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 

HON. THEODORE FRELINGHUYSEN, , -X 

H 

M Thy word is Truth."— John xvti. 17. ~^~ <V/ 



NEW YORK: 
PUBLISHED BY M. W. DODD 

BRICK CHURCH CHAPEL, CITY HALL SQUARE, 

(OPPOSITE THE CITY HALL.) 








rc\£ 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849, 

BY M. W. DODD, 

In the Clerk's Office for the Southern District of New York. 



THOMAS B, SMITH, STEREOTYPER, 
&J4> 'Mi -MAM STREET, N. Y. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The unpretending title of the following vol- 
ume sufficiently indicates its character. It is 
a Manual of Christian evidence, combining, by 
very skillful and happy arrangement, brevity, 
variety, and force of argument for the truth 
of Christianity. It should be, indeed, a hand- 
book for every man that feels it important to 
think of his origin and his destiny — of what 
he is, and what he must shortly be. 

The Christian religion presents a question 
at the threshold, first to be settled. Ami here 
by chance, and for no purpose but to eat, and 
live, and die ? Or am I a rational creature, 
of immortal faculties, and of high responsibili- 
ties? Have I that within me, which I feel 
cannot die, of noble and lofty aspirations, that 
points to its deathless destiny ? And if so— are 
the issues of life all a conjecture, or have I a 
light to guide me to the truth ? I know that 
in myself I am blind ; and there are no sure 



IV INTRODUCTION. 

landmarks around me. May I find them in 
the Bible? Has God indeed, as might be 
hoped from his benignity, made a revelation to 
men ? And does this Bible contain it ? This 
is a practical inquiry that should be made and 
answered. And this Manual gives the answer 
by evidence varied, clear, convincing, and con- 
clusive ; — evidence more full and satisfactory 
than ever sustained a fact in history or propo- 
sition in science. 

Such proof was to be expected from the 
counsels of divine wisdom and goodness. God 
did not reveal his will to man, for his guid- 
ance and hope, and then leave him in darkness 
or doubt about the evidence. It was a fair de- 
duction of sound reason, that when God gra- 
ciously vouchsafed, by his own word, to guide 
the children of men in the way of duty and 
life, that he would not only speak plainly, even 
to the wayfaring man, but also leave no place 
for doubt that he had spoken. 

And such is the realization with every 
candid and sincere inquirer after the truth. 
The authenticity and divine inspiration of the 
Sacred Scriptures is shown by light beaming 
from every quarter whence truth can derive 
support and illustration. The Heavens above 



INTRODUCTION. V 

us — -the laws of the mind within us — the 
whole economy of the universe of men and 
angels — our sympathies — our desires and our 
very frailties and sins — all bear one connected, 
consistent, and satisfying demonstration that 
the Bible came from God. And this compen- 
dious summary of proofs deserves to be read 
and studied. It does not open any new fields — 
but it has with uncommon ability explored the 
good old ways ; and brought out treasures, 
rich in instruction, and weighty in influence, 
upon the great questions of life and salvation. 
It will amply reward the attention that may 
be given to its pages. 

The Christian reader will find in it further 
cause of thankfulness to God, that his truth 
has such deep and strong foundations : and that 
the assaults of infidelity and the cavils of the 
gainsay er have only the more firmly established 
its claims, and brought to stronger light its 
blessed and eternal principles. 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER I. 

IS THE SOUL IMMATERIAL AND IMMORTAL 7 

Page 
Immortality of the Soul. Materiality and Immateriality of the Soul. 
Sympathy between Mind and Body. Mind not infantile. Inti- 
macy not Identity. Soul invisible. Clear Evidence of Mind. la 
the Mind in the Brain ? Change of the Body. Infinite Divisibil- 
ity. Does the Mind rest ? Production of Thought. Race perpet- 
ual. Yearning after Immortality. Desires of the Soul. Thought. 
Progression. 17 

CHAPTER II. 

DOES CREATION PROVE THE EXISTENCE OF GOD 1 

Atheist and Anti-theist. Atheism inexcusable. Existence of God 
possible. On Eternity of the Earth ; evidence of History. Pro- 
gress of Population ; of Science. Exchange of Localities. Old 
and New Races. On Design ; evidence of it from Mechanism of 
Human Body and Senses— from Chance— Eye— Bones of Man- 
Bird — Mole— Fish — Atmosphere in its Composition— Bee ; its 
Comb. Human Intellect — Intellectual Powers. Conscience. De- 
ficiencies of Argument from Nature ; from Reason. . . 39 

CHAPTER III. 

IS A REVELATION FROM GOD TO MAN PROBABLE AND 

NECESSARY ] 

This Discussion not meant for the fully Convinced; designed to 
confirm the Wavering and convict the Infidel. Pure Religion 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

Page 

here meant. What Christianity is. A Divine Revelation not in- 
consistent with Analogy and Experience. Need of a Revelation. 
This shown from Ancient Heathenism— from Modern Heathenism 
—from Infidels themselves. Jnfldel Morality— Lord Byron— Paul- 
Voltaire — Mirabeau — and other Infidels. Martyr Stephen. Com- 
parative State of Greeks and Jews. 64 

CHAPTER IV. 

IS THE BIBLE GENUINE AND AUTHENTIC*? 

The Bible is Genuine, and not a Forgery— shown by the conduct of 
the Jews— the testimony of the Apostolic Fathers— the Earliest 
rejectors of Christianity — early Translations — Multiplicity of the 
MSS. The Bible Authentic, as seen from the institution of the 
Sabbath— the Sacraments— concurrent testimony of other separate 
Facts. 89 

CHAPTER V. 

IS THE BIBLE INSPIRED 1 

Character of those claiming to be the Inspired Authors of the Bible. 
Morality of the Bible, Doctrines of the Bible, Harmony of the 
Scriptures. Evidence of Inspiration from Miracles. If the Bible 
be not from God, whence is it ? 105 



CHAPTER VI. 

IS THE BIBLE INSPIRED 1 

Evidence from Prophecy. Prophecies concerning the Messiah. 
Noah's Sons. Babylon. The Jews. Church of Rome. Seven 
Churches of Asia. Fulfilment of Messiac Prophecies. Christ's 
Predictions of the Destruction of Jerusalem. Character of Objec- 
tors to Christianity. Character and Teachings of Christ. Progress 
of Christianity. Preservation of the Bible. Experimental Evi- 
dence. The two Creeds. 115 

CHAPTER VII. 

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE BIBLE. 

Effects of the Bible. The Bible is a Revelation from God ; it is 
inspired ; it is written ; it is translated ; it is in varied Forms of 



CONTENTS. IX 

Page 
Speech ; it is intelligible ; it is intended for the People ; it is a 
perfect Standard ; it is inlaid with Christ. The Bible to be read 
for the Discovery of Truth, and not to establish a Theory. Sir 
William Jones's Testimony—Bishop Home's— Rousseau's. . . 147 



CHAPTER VIII. 

IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY OR INCONSISTENT 1 

Apocrypha. Inaccurate Translation. Curse of the Serpent. Hu- 
man Passions ascribed to God — Pharaoh's Case. Visiting Sins of 
the Parent upon the Children. Extirpation of Canaanites. Sacri- 
fice of Isaac. Indelicate Passages. Polygamy. Morality of New 
Testament too strict. Jephtha's Daughter. David and the City of 
Rabbah. Elisha and the forty-two Youths. The Curses of the 
Bible. Everlasting Punishment 157 

CHAPTER IX. 

IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY OR INCONSISTENT 1 

The Fall in Paradise. The Test applied to Adam and Eve. The 
Mosaic Account the best Explanation of the Existence of Evil. 
Bible History Evidence of its Antiquity and Truth. The Lan- 
guages of the World an Evidence. Chinese Tables Forgeries. 
Demonstration by La Place. The Creation of Light. The Human 
Race. Peopling of America. Supremacy of Man. Antediluvian 
Longevity. The Flood. The Ark. The Rainbow. Tower of 
Babel. Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot's Wife. Egyptian Magi- 
cians. Genealogies of Christ. Why the Delay of the Gospel. 
Why the whole World is not under its Influence. Varieties of 
Opinion about the Bible. Ministers of the Gospel inconsistent. 
Is the Gospel the Cause of Evils charged to it ? The Mysteries of 
the Bible. Right Way of understanding the Bible. The two 
Ways of reading the Bible 188 

CHAPTER X. 

DOCTRINAL DIFFICULTIES. 

The Bible not peculiar in having Difficulties. The Trinity. The 
Nature of God's Existence incomprehensible. Predestination. 
The Incarnation of Christ. A Vicarious Atonement. The Media- 
torial System. God's Interest in this World more than others of 



i CONTENT^. 

Page 
his Universe. Confirmation of Revelation by Astronomy. The 
Resurrection. Independent Existence of the Soul. Divine Influ- 
ence. Is there disproportion between Sin and its Punishment ? 
Are the Wise and Learned not Professors of Christianity ? Does 
Justification by Faith lead to Immorality. Is Christianity a Sys- 
tem of Priestcraft, Gain, &c. ? The Cause of most Men's Infidel- 
ity. The Bible not all Mystery 219 



CHAPTER XL 

TEXTS CAVILLED AT. 

Repentance of God. Scripture Imprecations. Total Depravity of 
the Heart. God does not exert his Power to bring Sinners to him- 
self. Severe Morality. Opposition to the pure Truth of the Bible 
an Evidence of its Heavenly Origin. Men saved by Justification. 253 

CHAPTER XII. 

CONCLUSION. 

Everything fleeting but God's Word. Universal Depravity and 
Guilt. Christ's Propitiation. Regeneration. Freeness and Uni- 
versality of the Gospel Offer. Final Triumphs of the Gospel. . 265 



PREFACE. 



The following pages are not meant for learned 
theologians, who already know all they contain, and 
a great deal more, but for Scripture-readers, for City 
missionaries, Sunday-school teachers, and others, 
who ought to know something of the outlines of 
Christian evidence. 

Deeper solutions can be given of many of the dif- 
ficulties that are quoted in this work, but such solu- 
tions would be inconvenient alike to teachers and 
learners, in the circumstances to which I have re- 
ferred. Simple and short explanations are, there- 
fore, far preferable : these are more easily remem- 
bered and most thoroughly understood. In the 
present age, a ready reply, like ready money, is most 
valuable. Such readers as desire more extended 
acquaintance with the reasons and facts by which 
the Christian faith is proved to be divine, are referred 
to Paley, Lardner, Bishop Newton, Dr. Campbell, 
Butler, Fuller, an admirable little treatise by Soame 
Jenyns, and another scarce but truly valuable work, 



12 PREFACE. 

by Dr. Mearns, of King's College, Aberdeen ; Barnes, 
in bis commentary on Isaiah, adduces very conclu- 
sive proofs of the fulfilment of prophecy ; Leslie's 
Short and Easy Method with the Deists is very effec- 
tive ; an admirable summary of Christian Evidence 
.s contained in Home's Introduction, vol. i. ; Dr. 
Hill's Lectures are also well worth perusal ; Leland's 
View of the Deistical Writers is very important; 
Watson's Apology is well known ; Gregory's Letters 
are justly popular. There are also some excellent 
observations on Christian evidence prefixed to Bag- 
ster's Comprehensive Bible. The author trusts his 
readers will not suppose he has said all that can be 
said on every point. He has given the simplest, 
shortest, and most intelligible outlines of the Chris- 
tian evidence, rather than the most powerful and 
conclusive. 

Should it enable the teacher of others to solve any 
perplexities with ease, which he has heretofore failed 
to explain with satisfaction to himself or conviction 
to the pupil ; or should it furnish any one with an 
additional reason for the faith that is in him, or in 
any degree commend and vindicate the Word of 
God ; the author will be amply rewarded. 

This the writer is truly convinced of, that the^ 
that read the Bible oftenest, and most attentively, 
will be most deeply persuaded of its Divine origin. 
A self-evidencing virtue goes forth from it ; and they 
that thus read it feel within them living proofs of it* 
divinity, and would rather part with all near and 



PREFACE. 13 

dear things than surrender their belief in the inspi- 
ration of a book which peoples heaven with their de- 
parted relatives — opens to them springs of real con- 
solation upon earth — and lifts the veil that conceals 
from their eyes yet brighter and more glorious pros- 
pects in eternity. The Saviour said, "Thy word is 
truth ;" and innumerable hearts from their inmost 
depths answer, " It is." 

There are many thousands who have never ex- 
amined, and therefore are not convinced by the evi- 
dences of Christianity. Perfect masters in law, or 
in medicine, or in literature, or in science, they are 
utterly uninformed on that " one thing needful," in 
comparison of which all these things are as straws 
floating on the surface of the current of life. 

The most irrational persons upon earth are surely 
those who will not investigate the claims of a religion 
which, right or wrong, declares itself to be the only 
communication of the mind of God. Either the 
Bible is dime, and justly demands supremacy in all 
religious discussions, or it is a gross imposture : any- 
thing between it cannot be. The most inexcusable 
and unjustifiable course that any can pursue, is that 
of indifference or ignorant contempt. 

Scripture proclaims such to be fools, and those 
only who read and understand to be wise. The 
prodigal was not "come to himself," or, as we say, 
was beside himself till he was restored to his home. 
The insanity of our asylums is that of the intellect. 
The insanitv of thoughtless millions is that of the 



14 PREFACE. 

heart. There is a parallelism between the two states. 
Let us look at it. A very common mark of insanity 
is insensibility to conclusive evidence. No weight 
of reasoning will sway the insane. But is not the 
unbeliever dead to the claims of truth, that are bright 
with the signature of God, and resplendent with the 
glories of heaven? Does not all creation, from the 
lowly violet in the sequestered vale, to the vast orb 
in the firmament, proclaim as one great choir, " the 
hand that made us is Divine ;" and is not insensibility 
to this insanity ? It is thus, then, that the unbeliev- 
ing spectator of creation, as well as the undevout as- 
tronomer, is mad. Does not Revelation give still 
more cogent proofs of its authorship ? axe not His 
foot-prints in its every page ? Is it not the record 
of His ways ? Is it not written in deeds of power, 
and acts of beneficence and mercy ? Has it not sur- 
vived all opposition, defied all proscription ? Do not 
martyrs from their flame-shrouds, and saints from 
their beds of glory, declare, " Thy word is Truth ?" 
Is not all confusion without it? Yet the sceptic 
rejects all, and would extinguish all. Surely his is 
the insanity of the seaman who would cast away his 
•chart and compass in the storm, or the raving, as it 
is the impotence, of him who would blot out the sun 
and moon, and stars, from the dome of earth. 

Indifference to momentous interests, visibly in 
peril, is strong evidence of insanity. Were we to 
see a man perfectly indifferent in the midst of the 
blazing rafters of his house, we could not help con- 



PREFACE. 15 

eluding that the man was deranged. Does he mani- 
fest greater sanity who hears of a nearing hell and a 
departing heaven, and yet remains in absolute apathy ? 
Is it other than a maniac's folly to be vexed about 
toys, and to be careless of everlasting realities? 
Shakspeare describes King Lear as gathering straws 
with the hand which had wielded a mighty sceptre ; 
and a greater than Shakspeare describes the king of 
Babylon as herding with the beasts of the field, in 
order that they may thus give vivid pictures of hu- 
manity in its ruins. Have not these discrowned kings 
a thousand living antitypes ? What Divine faculties 
do we see burrowing in the earth ! What mighty 
energies expending their strength in follies, indiffer- 
ent to eternal realities ! What attention devoted to 
fables, and denied to awful facts ! How many losing 
a soul for eternity, in settling a date in time ! 

A man standing by the crater of the groaning and 
heaving volcano — a woman holding her babe and 
laughing with maniac revelry amid the converging 
flames of her furniture, and spurning away the fire- 
escape — the seaman catching fish, while his vessel 
sinks inch by inch in the abyss of waters — are but 
faint representations of the insanity of him who, un- 
concerned about his soul, engages in all pursuits and 
indulges in all pleasures, with an eternity of respon- 
sibility rolling onward on the spot on which he 
stands, like a vast Atlantic sea. And since insanity 
ends in suicide, what else is deliberate rejection of 
life ? The unbelieving perish by their own hand*. 



16 PREFACE. 

Theirs, too, is insanity without its irresponsibility. 
They show the folly of the maniac, while they incur 
the guilt of the criminal. 

Reader, review your state : consider your ways : 
ponder the paths of your feet. Fully, and fairly, and 
patiently weigh the facts, and reasonings, and illus- 
trations contained in the following pages, and God 
himself direct you to a just, a true and unchangeable 
conviction. 



IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

CHAPTER I. 

IS THE SOUL IMMATERIAL AND IMMORTAL? 

This is a useful though not an essential preliminary 
investigation. We therefore attempt to throw a lit- 
tle light on it. Christianity is the religion of inquiry, 
as well as the subject of triumphant proof. It does 
not demand our assent to propositions without any 
previous examination of their character and their 
claims. Its language is — Search, examine, judge ye 
whether these things be so or not. 

Our first is simply a preliminary inquiry — it is the 
immortality, or after-existence, of the soul of man. 
If there be no hereafter — no reckoning at the judg- 
ment morn — no destiny in the future dependent 
upon character created in the present — then the 
claims of the Gospel to be a revelation from God 
are of comparatively trivial moment. If, when we 
die, and the green turf is laid upon us, our eyes are 
destined to open on no hereafter, nor our hearts to 
throb again, then the truth or the falsity of Chris-! 
2* 



18 

tianity, except so far as it touches this, is an insig- 
nificant inquiry. 

The materiality or immateriality of the soul does 
not vitally affect the question of its hereafter exist- 
ence. I am convinced, and I think I shall be able 
to convince the reader, that the soul is immaterial; 
but if it were shown satisfactorily by physiologists 
that the soul of man is a material substance, that 
would not prove that the soul is not immortal. God 
might be pleased to endue matter with the attributes 
of immortality ; He might be pleased to impress 
upon a material soul the capacity for a never-ending 
or eternal hereafter. His fiat would be its inher- 
itance of a never-ending existence. But I think I 
shall be able to prove, by a few plain and simple 
propositions, that the soul is not only immortal but 
that it is also immaterial — that is, that it is not the 
same in substance as the body. 

The favorite position of materialists, that is, those 
who deny its immateriality, is, an analogy. They 
say that the mind grows and dies with the body- 
that the mind is infantile with the infant body, — 
full grown in the adult, — wasted by disease, debilita- 
ted by age ; and therefore, say they, it must be, as 
the natural sequence, annihilated by death. They 
maintain, that the analogy that subsists between the 
body and the soul, or the intimacy between the one 
and the other, is so entire, that we find at each step 
the mind" and body going hand in hand in a common 
equi-progressive destiny, so that (I repeat the words,) 



THE SOUL IMMATERIAL AND IMMORTAL. 19 

the mind is infantile with the infant body, full grown 
in the adult, wasted by disease, debilitated by age ; 
and therefore, they say, the presumption is, that it 
dies when the body dies. 

Now, if they could substantiate the first four pro- 
positions, that the mind is always infantile in the in- 
fant, and always full grown in the adult, and ahvays 
wasted by disease, and always debilitated by age, 
then the presumption would be that most probably it 
was always destroyed by death. But we can prove 
from facts, that the analogy does not hold good at 
every step ; and one such proof is fatal to the whole. 
We find that the soul is not always wasted by dis- 
ease ; I have myself seen the soul possessed of mas- 
culine vigor, when the whole earthly tenement was 
on the verge of crumbling into ruins. It is not true, 
also, that the soul is always debilitated by age ; I 
have seen grey hairs and gathering infirmities of body 
incasing and yet unfolding a soul vigorous as in the 
meridian of life. Now if the analogy fail in one 
step, then the consequence deduced must fail also; 
for if it be true that the soul is only sometimes 
weakened by disease, and sometimes debilitated by 
age, then the only logical result they can reach by 
their argument is, that it is sometimes mortal and 
sometimes immortal, and therefore that there are two 
sorts of men, one class mortal and another immortal ; 
which is what has been called by logicians, a reductio 
ad absurdum. We therefore maintain, that this 
analogy, which some materialists glory in as a dem- 



20 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

onstration that the soul perishes with the body, does 
not hold good when we come fairly and impartially 
to investigate it. 

Mind and body do not always sympathize to- 
gether ; that is, the one may be a sufferer, and the 
other not. 

It has been found that paralysis has unnerved and 
unstrung the whole system, and yet the mind of 
man has remained unscathed. I will quote a case ; 
that of the celebrated, the witty, and the clever 
diplomatist, Talleyrand. His body was in the most 
wretched, miserable, diseased and distressed con- 
dition one can conceive ; and yet the subtlety, and 
the wisdom, and the skill, and the talent, and the 
penetration of that diplomatist are allowed to have 
remained to his last moments unequalled. I may 
also refer to the celebrated Dean Swift. It was 
said, that before he died his body was a moving 
tomb ; and yet his mind was as vigorous as in his 
earlier years. It is stated, in the forty third num- 
ber of the Quarterly Revietv, that Morgagni and 
Haller, distinguished continental anatomists, have 
ascertained that in one instance or another every 
part of the brain has been found destroyed or dis- 
organized, and yet the individuals have none of them 
been deprived of mind, or affected in what has been 
thought the corresponding intellectual powers ; I say 
not, that in any one case the whole of the brain has 
been found disorganized or destroyed, but in one in- 
stance or another they have found it so with each 



THE SOUL IMMATERIAL AND IMMORTAL. 21 

part successively, and yet none of those individuals 
had lost any of their moral, intellectual, or mental 
powers. And if it can thus be shown, that this 
very organ, the brain, in which some craniologists 
are pleased to lodge the mental faculties of man, 
has been more or less destroyed without any of his 
affections or intellectual energies being injured, it is 
proof positive that something more than the mere 
brain is that which constitutes his claim to be a 
mental and moral being. But when anatomists and 
chemists have analyzed the brain, what have they 
found ? Let us hear. Some have said, that they 
trace all mental phenomena to a portion called the 
pineal gland. ISTow anatomists have analyzed it ; 
and what do you think is it made of? Phosphate 
of lime. And will phosphate of lime originate the 
splendid dramas of Shakspeare, or the epic poems 
of Milton, or the Iliad of Homer, or the poems of 
Virgil ? Monstrous absurdity ! It is quite plain, 
that there must be some agent prior and extra- 
neous to the brain, which acts upon the brain, and 
thereby upon the physical system of man. 

I stated, at the outset of my remarks, that the 
physiologist asserts that the mind is infantile with the 
body in the child, vigorous in the adult, weakened 
by disease, debilitated by age, and therefore de- 
stroyed by death. Now I would just invert this. 
^ I would say that the body is infantile, not the 
mind in the child. Have you not observed (what is 
a most remarkable practical lesson) that the child has 



22 

thoughts and fears and feelings which it is not able 
to express by its bodily organs ? Hence the remark 
made by parents, that the child, knows much more 
than yon suppose ; and when we look at the atten- 
tion, the listening looks, and the riveted notice that 
a child gives to what is going on, we are convinced that 
he knows a great deal more than he generally gets 
credit for. Hence it may be seen that children grow 
up, with impressions upon their minds that we cannot 
account for : the fact is, that at the time their infant 
bodies gave no intimation of what was going on in 
the inner sanctuary of the soul, their maturer minds 
were drinking in the habits and principles of those 
around tb em. I maintain, therefore, that in the child 
the mind is greater than the body — not that the 
body is equal to or greater than the mind. And I 
would therefore reverse the position materialists glory 
in, and say that the body of the child is infantile, 
while its mind is possessed of attributes far greater 
than is usually thought. 

We admit a close intimacy between mind and mat- 
ter, between the soul and the body, but we deny 
identity. And I think I can prove this. 

We shall find, for instance, that if we take so 
much of opium or so much of alcohol into the body, 
the mind, from its intimacy with the body, will be 
affected by it ; that is, by sympathy. We shall find 
also, that if we take into the mind so much anger, so 
much jealousy, so much hatred, so much love, so 
much passion, the body will, from its intimacy with 



THE SOUL IMMATERIAL AND IMMORTAL. 23 

the mind, be affected by it ; and this proves inti- 
macy. But if the material stimuli of opium or alco- 
hol require a material medium through which to act, 
surely the moral stimuli of jealousy and love and 
passion must, by parity of reasoning, require a moral 
medium, the soul, through which they can act upon 
the body. I do think that this position is positively 
irrefragable — viz., that the fact that physical stimuli 
require a physical agent through which to act upon 
the mind, warrants us in concluding that moral stim- 
uli require a moral agent through which to act upon 
the body, and therefore that there must be a part 
that is immaterial, moral, and intellectual. 

We do not deny, that if the brain become greatly 
diseased, mania or madness has frequently ensued ; 
but this does not prove that the brain is the soul. 
Suppose I single out the first musician that ever 
touched an instrument, and take him to a piano, or 
an organ, or a violin, or any other instrument of mu- 
sic, out of tune, and bid him play. He tries to pro- 
duce the notes he knows, but neither melody nor 
harmony is poured forth. Why ? Not because the 
musician's mind has lost its power, or the musician's 
finders have lost their skill : but because the instru- 
ment on which he acts is out of tune. Now it is 
just so with the brain. When a man is seized with 
mania or madness, it is not because the soul has be- 
come disorganized or destroyed, but because the in- 
strument is out of tune and disarranged. In fact, the 
soul is the master musician ; and the brain is but the 



24 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD i 

instrument, through which that master musician acts 
— in tones, in looks, in sympathies, and by the senses 
— upon the world that is around. 

In the next place it is said by physiologists — If 
there be a soul, we ought to be able to detect and 
show it to all who choose to look on it. 

!Now this seems to me a most extraordinary con- 
clusion. The very definition that we give of the 
soul (that it is immaterial) would be sufficient reason 
why we should not be able to detect it. The physi- 
ologist is so accustomed to material anatomy, that 
he always imagines that a thing does not exist, unless 
he can show it on the point of his lancet. But if 
this be his only criterion of existence, he must be 
very sceptical in many things. Can he show an idea 
upon the point of his lancet ? Can he show a thought 
on the point of his scalpel ? It can therefore be no 
good reason for denying the existence of the soul, 
that he cannot mechanically detect it. 

But we allege that we have clearer evidence of 
the existence of mind, than we have of the existence 
of matter. This may seem strange ; but it is true. 
Berkeley, the bishop of Cloyne, a distinguished and 
excellent man, maintained that there was no such 
thing as matter — that there are merely certain sen- 
sations or impressions made by God upon the brain, 
■which give us the notion of matter — and that we live 
in a world, not of matter, but of universal idealism. 
Absurd as it may appear, one must be surprised at 
the ingenious arguments with which he contends for 




THE SOUL IMMATERIAL AND IMMORTAL. 25 

the non-existence of matter. But though he could 
reason away matter, he could not thus reason himself 
out of the existence of mind. For the very fact that a 
man doubts and reasons, is a proof that there is a 
doubting and reasoning faculty. The very doubt 
establishes our position, that there is a mind, or a 
soul, or an immaterial faculty, capable of doubting. 

Physiologists or materialists (not all physiologists, 
but those of them who are materialists) say that the 
brain is the mind — that it alone is the soul — and that 
in fact they can trace everything to the brain as the 
ultimatum of sensation and thought, but no further. 

Now I admit the fact, that we can trace sensation 
and thought to the brain ; but I will show you that 
we can go a step farther and trace it beyond it. For 
instance; we are in the habit of saying that the 
eye sees ; but the eye cannot see ; it is the mere in- 
strument of vision, it is no more to man than a teles- 
cope or a microscope beautifully constructed, and if 
the eye is diseased, then sight is destroyed. I take a 
step further ; I allege that if the optic nerveis diseased, 
then though the eye may be as perfect as God ever 
created it, yet I cannot see. I go still a step further ; 
it has been found, that if the brain be diseased or 
pressed upon in a certain part, then though the optic 
nerve and the eye remain sound, there is no sight. 
But now I will go a step further. A letter or news- 
paper is brought by the postman to an individual ; 
he reads it, and the result of reading it has been that 
the man has dropped down dead. Why this ? No 

3 



26 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

physical weapon touched him. It was a purely men- 
tal idea, that acted upon the brain, and the brain 
acted upon the nervous system, and the man died 
because the letter contained some fearful or disastrous 
tidings. Or again, one friend calls upon another, 
and says that some great catastrophe has happened 
to his nearest and dearest relative, and we find that 
instances have occurred of the man instantly losing 
his sight, or his hearing, or being paralyzed. Here 
it was a moral fact, that struck the man with physi- 
cal effects. The mind or mental power acted on the 
brain ; that acted on the nerves ; and they acted on 
the senses. And thus while the materialist traces all 
to the brain, we show that we can go a step further 
— and prove the existence of a being above the brain, 
an agent that acts upon the brain, and, in short, that 
the brain is the mere agent of that being that dwells 
in the immaterial sanctuary, inviolate within. 

Materialists have admitted (indeed all must admit) 
that the body of man undergoes a complete change, 
some say every seven, some every twelve, some every 
twenty years. Suppose now, to avoid anything like 
controversy, we say every tiventy years — that every 
particle in man's physical system is transferred and 
removed from him every twenty } T ears. Then if a 
man live to the age of sixty, it can be demonstrated 
that he has had actually three bodies in the course 
of those sixty years ; every particle in his body has 
been changed, and supplanted by another particle. 
This is admitted. Now if the mind of man is mate- 



THE SOUL IMMATERIAL AND IMMORTAL. 27 

rial, and be the body, and of the body, then it must 
have undergone corresponding changes; and there- 
fore in every twenty years a man's consciousness 
must have changed, and he must have no recollec- 
tion, or personal identity, no conviction that at sixty 
years of age he was the same person that he was 
forty years ago. Now what an absurdity is this ! 
We know that the body has undergone this trans- 
mutation of parts ; but we have a feeling and con- 
sciousness of personal identity, by which we are 
thoroughly convinced that we are each the same 
person, that we have each the same peculiarity of 
temper, of disposition, of feeling, of love, of hatred, 
of happiness, that we are the same in all substantial 
respects as we were twenty years ago. And there- 
fore we maintain, that as the materialist cannot show 
that man's mind changes every twenty years, he 
cannot show that it is (as he alleges) material. 

It is admitted by materialists, that matter is infi- 
nitely divisible, or at least that it is divisible into 
parts. Thus you speak of a foot of deal, or an inch 
of oak, or a yard of rope, or of cable, or of chain. 
Now if man's mind be material, the same as the 
body, as the materialist alleges, then it ought to be 
perfectly good sense and good grammar to speak of 
an inch of anger, of el foot of jealousy, or of yards of 
passion ; the very statement of which so revolts all 
men's feelings, and seems so ridiculous, that it needs 
only to be mentioned, to provoke the refutation it 
deserves. 



28 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

Materialists have said that we find this fact illus- 
trating their proposition — that the mind seems to 
repose, and sleep, and enjoy quiescence along with 
the body. They quote the case of individuals sleep- 
ing at night. "We see," (they say) "that the mind 
is weary and worn out with the brain, and that it 
courts and enjoys repose along with the body ; and 
therefore it is part and parcel of the material frame." 

Wow I rather question the ground of this position. 
At all events one fact to the contrary would shake 
their argument that it is always so. There is no in- 
dividual in the world, who has not been conscious 
of dreaming. That one fact shows, that the body 
may be in a state of repose, while the mind is in the 
exercise of unshackled activity. And I am con- 
scious that the mind is frequently in a state of more 
active and vigorous exercise during sleep, than it 
was in waking hours. I believe that the mind never 
sleeps, and that at every moment every individual's 
mind is active. 

But the physiologist says, If the mind never sleeps, 
why then do we not recollect in the morning what 
we dreamed in the night ? Now I ask, Do you re- 
collect, when you sit down at night, all the facts 
that passed through your mind in the day-time? 
You do not. You know that ten thousand thoughts 
have passed through your mind this day, which you 
cannot recollect and enumerate this night. And 
may it not be — (nay, is it not so ?) — that ten thou- 
sand thoughts, brighter and better than of earth, 



THE SOtJL IMMATERIAL AND IMMORTAL. 29 

pass through your mind in the hours of sleep, which 
you cannot recollect in the morning ? I am con- 
scious that I have preached far better sermons in 
sleep than ever I did in the pulpit ; and I have com- 
posed far better commentaries upon God's Word, 
and have been conscious of it too, in my sleep, than 
when sitting in my study. And I believe many an 
individual has been conscious in sleep of brilliant 
thoughts, that would make his name memorable as 
Milton's, if he could only embody and give utterance 
to them in his waking hours. This statement there- 
fore that the mind is invariably in a state of quies- 
cence and repose along with the body, is not borne 
out by the general experience of mankind. 

Let it be recollected that everything which the 
materialist or the physiologist has detected in man, 
has been the subject of analysis. I have said that 
one portion of man's brain has been analyzed : but 
so has every part. The nerves in man's system, the 
brain in his head, have been subjected to the analy- 
sis of the chemists ; and they can tell you of what 
they all are composed. To explain mind, it has 
been suggested, that galvanism or electricity is the 
source of the nervous influence of the human system. 
Kow if we can thus find out all the component parts 
of the human system, and ascertain the secret of 
nervous sensibility, then the question is, are any of 
those parts, or is any collocation or excitement of 
them, adequate to produce thoughts ? Would all 
the galvanism or electricity in the world produce a 



30 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

single book of the Eneid of Virgil, or a single page 
of the Paradise Lost of Milton ? If mere galvanic 
influence is the source of thought, then it would fol- 
low, that if you could impart to a brute animal a 
greater quantity of galvanic power, you would raise 
him nearer to the dignity of a man ; and if you could 
impart to the greatest fool or the veriest idiot, a 
greater quantity of electricity, you would raise him 
and might bring him to the height of a Homer or a 
Milton. But this is felt to be absurd. And can we 
then suppose, that a quantity of matter acted on by 
this galvanic influence, is all that is meant by mind 
— that that can regulate and produce the splendid 
discoveries of the age — that that can construct a 
ship of war, a steam vessel, a railroad, or any of 
those discoveries that stamp this as an age of great 
and unparalleled progress in human knowledge, and 
in physical science ? Xo, the very statement of the 
thing is enough to demonstrate its absurdity and un- 
tenableness. 

It has been held by some materialists, that the race 
is perpetual, but that the individuals of the race are 
perishable ; that is, that while the human race is 
perpetual, and having begun in time, generation shall 
be perpetuated after generation in eternum, the in- 
dividuals who make up the generations, or the com- 
ponent parts, are all perishable and disappear. They 
quote, as instances and illustrations, the beasts of the 
field and the trees of the forest. Take a tree, they 
say, the apple tree for instance : it grows up from a 



THE SOUL IMMATERIAL AND IMMORTAL. 31 

little seed, it bears its leaves and its blossoms, and 
its fruit, and then it dies, and afterwards other apple 
trees come up, and so each single apple tree perishes, 
but the genus or species of apple trees is perpetual 
through all centuries. 

Now, if there were a perfect parallel between the 
tree and its uses and its destiny, and man and his 
uses and his destiny, this position would be tenable. 
But if we look closer at the subject, we shall find 
there is no parallel. In the first place, when the 
apple tree has produced its blossoms, and borne its 
fruit, and spread forth its boughs, it has done all it 
was meant to accomplish, and then it dies and dis- 
appears. But when man has made Ins noblest steps 
in knowledge, in triumph over sin, in victory over 
temptation, instead of having achieved his end, he 
has only risen one step higher in order to prepare 
him for rising to another — and when he has reached 
that, for rising to another still. In short, eternity, 
boundlessness and progression are the elements of 
man ; while time and the material world are ele- 
ments of the tree. Until man is perfect as God is 
perfect, acquainted with science, and wisdom, and 
experience, even as God is, he has not attained to 
the ultimatum of his power, and the end of his be- 
ing ; and therefore the parallel does not hold good . 
Nor does it hold good in another respect. For if 
the tree were allowed infinite and boundless prog- 
ress, it would rise so high and spread its branches so 
wide, that it would overshadow too much of the 



32 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

world, — it would absorb all the nutritious juices of 
the earth, and there would be no space nor room 
for the growth and expansion of other trees quite as 
useful and necessary to man ; and therefore its end- 
less expansion and growth would be most mischiev- 
ous. But we find the reverse true of man's soul. 
The more he discovers, the larger sphere he opens 
up for other discoveries to follow ; the more he mas- 
ters in knowledge, in science, in virtue, in piety, in 
righteousness, instead of taking up the ground that 
ought to be occupied by others, he strikes out new 
spheres for others to occupy — new paths for others 
to walk in — new room for the expansion of the in- 
tellectual and moral power of those around him. 
So that while the tree, by endless progression, would 
absolutely encumber the system to which it belongs, 
man, by endless progression, instead of overshadow- 
ing and excluding, rather creates greater room for 
others, and furnishes fresh scope for the develop- 
ment of their intellectual powers and moral gran- 
deur; so that in this respect also the comparison 
does not hold good between man and the tree. It 
fails too in another respect. With the brute of the 
field, the present is everything. If we take a dog, 
for instance : he has no recollection — at least no rec- 
ollection of any of the facts, the transactions, the 
principles, the doings, or the great sensations of the 
past; nor has he any anticipation of the future 
whatever. The present is everything with the dumb 
animals. But with man, memory is the treasury and 



THE SOUL IMMATERIAL AND IMMORTAL. 33 

the storehouse of ten thousand things that are past ; 
and he has within him a power of anticipation, that 
still strives and stretches onward, and away to things 
that are future. While the present makes up the 
entire happiness of the dog, the past and the future 
are the great sources and fountains of the happiness 
of man. Therefore the destruction of the dog is no 
loss to him. The present is all; and when he is 
extinguished he loses nothing. But if man be annihi- 
lated, he loses all the past treasures he has accumu- 
lated, and he foregoes all the bright joys he antici- 
pates for the future. The annihilation of his soul is 
a catastrophe too big for human imagination to con- 
ceive, too horrible for the human mind to look to. 
When the tree has withered, and all its branches and 
its boughs have been dissolved, they do not perish ; the 
constituent parts of it, when reduced to powder, are 
fertile nutriment to the earth, and are absorbed into 
it, and are reproduced in other shapes. It may ap- 
pear in the shape of another apple tree ; it dies, it 
is cut down, and is resolved into dust ; and in the 
next century it may appear in the form of the bloom- 
ing rose, or in the shape of the fragrant violet. It 
is not annihilated ; it merely experiences a change 
of form and of development, a transmigration of 
substance. But this will not hold good of man. If 
man's soul should be thus reduced, it cannot become 
thus revived. Why ? Because my consciousness 
never can be another man's ; my feelings, my hopes 
my prospects, my personal identity, never can be 



34 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

another man's. I can give away my money, I can 
give my knowledge, I can give my very limbs, my 
life ; but I cannot give away that consciousness of 
personal identity, which constitutes me. It is in- 
alienable from me ; it must either be extinguished 
altogether, or perpetuated in myself. So that 
whilst the destruction of the tree is only the prepa- 
ration of that tree for other forms of existence, and 
perhaps more beauteous forms, the destruction of 
my soul must by the necessity of the case be utter 
annihilation. It never can be transmigration, or 
transfer to any other. We say, therefore, that the 
supposed analogy between the rational and the 
animal or vegetable creation, in this — that the race is 
perpetual, but that the individuals of the race per- 
ish — is a position that cannot be held. 

But I appeal for evidence to men's innermost feel- 
ings. I have given many plain and intelligible state- 
ments ; but there are proofs superior to the reason- 
ing and the subtlety of human logic. Reader, go to 
the grave of a departed father or friend. It will 
there be seen, that man's feelings and common sense 
are mightier and more overwhelming than any logic ; 
and when you look on the grave of the near and the 
dear, is there not something that tells you that you are 
not parted forever ? Is there not a wish springing up 
in your heart from mysterious depths, that impresses 
on you the thought that you shall meet again ? Who 
implanted that wish ? Why are we capable of it ? 
When the dog sees a dog buried, he has no such 



THE SOUL IMMATERIAL AND IMMORTAL. 35 

feeling ; when the ox sees an ox slain, he has no such 
expectancy ; why is it, that man, when he looks 
upon the pale face of departed relationship, has a 
wish — and not only a wish, an impression — nay, 
more, a conviction that cannot be erased — that they 
shall meet again ? Has God implanted this linger- 
ing longing after immortality, but implanted this wish 
and made us capable of this feeling only to tantalize 
and to taunt us ? Impossible ! This would be worse 
than the treatment of the fabled Tantalus, of whom 
it is alleged in mythology, that when the cup of cool- 
ing water was placed near his lips, the moment he 
tried to drink it, it departed, aggravating his torment 
year after year. If God has made us with this strong 
wish, this yearning after immortality, only to tan- 
talize us, and to snatch from us the cup of life at the 
moment we are about to drink of it, surely that God 
cannot be the good, the kind, the loving God, that 
even nature and nature's voice proclaim Him to be. 

When man has overcome, and possessed, and ap- 
propriated all that is in the universe, there is yet 
something in man that will not allow him to be satis- 
fied. His soul's vast appetences are not met. It 
yearns for satisfaction still. 

I think Alexander the Great presents, in one in- 
stance of his life, a most impressive proof of the 
greatness, if not the immortality of the soul. You 
are aware, that that monarch overran the whole 
earth, and subdued every nation ; and at the conclu- 
sion of universal victory what did he say ? " Now 



36 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

that I have gained the whole world, that object of 
ten thousand individuals, that wish of ten thousand 
hearts, I am satisfied ?" No, Alexander the Great 
had something more in him, though he knew it not ; 
he sat down — that monarch, that mighty conqueror 
— and wept like a child, because he had not another 
world to conquer! The world could not fill his 
mind, nor would it fill a babe's. We read also of a 
Roman emperor, who had run the round of all the 
pleasures of the world, offering a rich reward to any 
one who should discover a new pleasure ; as if to 
teach us, that when all the sweets of the world have 
been tasted, and all the contents of the world have 
been subdued and possessed, man's soul, unsatisfied 
with its material possessions, thirsts and longs for 
something nobler, brighter, greater and better, than 
the world itself. 

Again ; if there be no hereafter, how are we to 
account for those thoughts, vaster than the earth, 
that spring up in every one's mind, and of which 
every one is more or less conscious ? 

Is it not true, that 'thoughts, more glorious than 
anything that the world can furnish, do occasionally 
leap from our hearts, like angels too bright and too 
beautiful for earth ? Is it not true, that we just 
catch from astronomy, what is sufficient to excite our 
curiosity, to know more of its brilliant and ever burn- 
ing orbs, and the more we know, the more still we 
strive and thirst to know ? Is it not true, that we 
form at times conceptions of human excellence, ideas 



t 



THE SOUL IMMATERIAL AND IMMORTAL. 37 

of loveliness and moral worth, that never have been 
and never can be realized on earth ? What are all 
these ? They are presentiments of heaven — harbin- 
gers of immortality — voices, crying even " in the 
wilderness" of the materialist's heart, that man is not 
to perish with the brute. They proclaim, in tones 
too distinct to be misunderstood, that there will come 
a time, when all those stars which he has imperfectly 
seen shall be stretched out before him, like isles upon 
the ocean of infinitude — when all those ideas of ex- 
cellence — those thirstings after perfection — those as- 
pirations after joy and peace, shall be satisfied from 
the river of God, which flows from the throne of God, 
and of the Lamb forever and ever. 

Progression is the order of all that we can see in 
the world ; and this furnishes a presumption of our 
immortality. 

A striving after something that is above it, is the 
order and the characteristic of every created thing. 
Take the lowest form of this ; take the metal in its 
ore. Look at those crystals, that appear upon the 
copper or the silver ore ; they are just the striving 
of that substance to reach the next grade of excel- 
lence, the vegetable product. If we turn to the 
flower, the tree, and the fruit, as for instance the 
sensitive plant, we find vegetable presenting the 
foreshadow and striving after animal life. And if 
we go to animal life, we find some creatures treading 
upon the very heels of man, and striving to reach 
his dignity and glory. And when we come to man, 

4 



38 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD '? 

is all this to be arrested ? Is he to be an exception 
and an anomaly in the noblest analogies of the uni- 
verse ? Is he to be a petrifaction ? We know that 
it is not so. We know and feel, that from being 
mortal here, he shall be immortal hereafter — his 
body only dissolved in the dust, or laid in the silent 
grave. He shall see another day, a day (to leave 
the paths of human reasoning and have recourse to 
the inspiration of God), " when they that are in the 
graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and 
shall come forth, they that have done good unto the 
resurrection of life, and they that have done evil, 
unto the resurrection of damnation. " 

I have given you all the reasons I could collect. 
They are not wholly original ; they are gathered in 
the course of reading. They are facts and reasons 
which I submit to you ; and I conceive that, when 
we lay them together, and weigh and consider them, 
they amount to a moral presumption the most over- 
whelming, that man's soul shall live hereafter — that 
when God " breathed into his nostrils the breath of 
life," He gave him an immortal soul. 

If we appeal to Revelation, the matter is soon 
ended. There the intimations are plain. But all 
that I have shown you is, how far nature will go. 
And I trust I shall be able to show, that we can 
prove from nature also, that there is a God ; and by 
and by, that the Bible is a book sent from that God 
— the intimations of which are the intimations of 
truth. 



CHAPTER II. 

DOES CREATION PROVE THE EXISTENCE OF GOD ? 

Does creation evidence a God ? It does ; but on 
this subject I must make a preliminary distinction. 
It is this, an atheist there may be, but an anti-theisl 
there cannot possibly be. That is to say, a man 
may declare that he does not find any evidence that 
satisfies him of the existence of a God, but no man 
may dare to say absolutely, there is not a God. The 
former, is merely the expression of that individual's 
necessarily most limited, imperfect, and restricted 
experience : but the latter proposition would imply, 
that the individual had soared among the stars, and 
ransacked the contents of the worlds that are there 
■ — -that he had descended to the caves of the ocean, 
and explored the unknown treasures and stores that 
are there — that he had travelled through the mines 
and strata of the earth, and explored the hidden re- 
cesses, and depths, and mysteries there — that, in 
short, he had been in time past possessed of omni- 
presence and of omniscience, and in the exercise of 
two attributes of Deity had not discovered a God. 
The fact is, such an individual must be himself God, 



40 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

in order to be in a position to announce the propo^- 
sition — There is not a God. 

This distinction is most important. All that the 
atheist can say is, " I do not find proofs of a God ;" 
and this depends upon the sagacity of his mind — - 
upon the extent of his survey — upon the honesty of 
his researches, and the continuity of his application, 
and is at the best a very venturous and precarious 
announcement. But no man can declare, " There is 
not a God ;" because such a declaration would imply 
that the individual making it is omniscient, for if 
there be one star that studs the firmament unex- 
plored by him, that star may be the lesson-book that 
proclaims the existence of a God ; and if there be 
one corner in the boundlessness of infinitude unex- 
amined, it may disclose a God ; and therefore, until 
the individual has swept the illimitable recesses of 
space, he cannot sit down and declare there is not a 
God. 

I may also observe, that the atheist is not to be 
blamed because he has not found out the existence 
of God ; but he is to be blamed if, having powers 
fitted to investigate — if, having facts submitted for 
collocation — if, having evidence pressed upon his 
judgment and his conscience — he refuses to examine, 
and concludes in wilful and obstinate ignorance that 
he cannot find a God. And the charge that will be 
adduced against such a man at the judgment bar, 
will not be that he was ignoraat of God, but that 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 41 

he would not give himself the trouble to examine 
whether there was a God or not. 

In the next place, the very fact that the existence 
of a God is probable, or even possible, ought to 
awaken in every reflecting being the most strenuous 
and the most persevering efforts to know if there be 
that God. Shall I every hour be the recipient of 
innumerable mercies — shall I every day enjoy bless- 
ings countless as the sands upon the sea-shore — and 
shall there never arise in my mind one solitary ques- 
tion, if there be a Fountain, and who is the Foun- 
tain of those mercies ? Shall I make no search af- 
ter the Hand that bestows them, nor try to reach 
the ocean fulness from which they continually em- 
anate ? Shall I take the gift, and live in wilful ig- 
norance of the good Giver? There will, therefore, 
in the atheist, be not only the gTeat guilt of not hav- 
ing searched and examined whether there be a God, 
but there will be the great ingratitude of never hav- 
ing tried to ascertain the fountain of those blessings, 
that he reaps and realizes every day. 

The first statement that has been made by way of 
objection to the existence of a God, is that adduced 
by Hume, Mirabeau, and Voltaire — that it is as ra- 
tional to suppose that the earth is eternal, as to sup- 
pose that there is a Maker of it, who is eternal in its 
stead. It is just as rational, say they, to presume 
the earth has the attribute of eternal existence, as 
that there is a God who made the earth, and who 
has that attribute. 

4* 



42 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

Now we maintain, in opposition to this most ex- 
travagant suggestion, that there are very powerful 
proofs that the earth is not eternal, but on the other 
hand, no proofs that there is not an eternal God, 
who made it. And the proofs that the earth is not 
eternal, are very short and simple. 

We do not deny that the raw material of which 
the earth is formed may have existed millions of 
years ; — we do not deny that the rocks and the dust, 
of which the earth is composed, may be ten, twenty, 
or thirty thousand years old ; but what we assert is, 
that the present collocation, disposition and arrange- 
ment of all that is upon the surface and in the sub- 
soil of the earth, bears most decisive proof that the 
world as it is, is not older than the Mosaic record 
declares it to be.* 

To prove this, we need only refer to the limited 
range of history. Here is a fact we can all examine. 
We have nothing like authentic history older than 
four thousand years. The Chinese have their my- 
thology, and their wild and romantic legends ; but 
it can be shown by internal evidence, that the docu- 
ments of the Chinese are absurd and contradictory, 
and that instead of that nation being older than the 
age of the antediluvian patriarchs, it is not older 
than 2,500 or 3,000 years at the utmost. 

Another proof of the recent collocation of the 
earth is deduced from a consideration of the progress 
and the expansive force of population. There are 
* See BucklancTs Bridgewater Treatise. 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 43 

millions of miles upon the surface of the earth not 
yet peopled ; but if the earth had been twenty thou- 
sand years or thirty thousand years old, the pre- 
sumption is that it would have been covered with a 
population which it would be scarcely adequate to 
maintain. Instead of that, if the earth should last 
other five thousand years, and the ratio of popula- 
tion should proceed as it has done, it would still be 
abundantly adequate to accommodate and support 
all its children upon its surface. 

In the next place, the progress of science seems 
presumptive evidence, that the earth is not above 
four or five thousand years old. It is only within 
the last three hundred years, that the most brilliant 
discoveries in science have been made — that the 
most important productions in poetry, history, and 
chronology have been brought to light, or created by 
the master-spirits of the world in which we live. 

If we take these facts — the fact that we have no 
authentic history older than three or four thousand 
years — the fact that the population of the earth has 
not yet covered one half of it — and the fact that 
science and literature bear upon their brows the 
proofs and demonstrations of childhood, I think the 
presumption is overwhelming, that the earth in its 
present collocation is not older than the Mosaic 
record represents it to be. It is contrary to reason 
to suppose the earth to be eternal. It is rational to 
believe it the creation of God, and evidence, there- 
fore, of his existence. 



44 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

There is a fact that has been brought to light by 
modern geologists, which demonstrates the interpo- 
sition just as the earth proves the existence of God. 
It has been found that the ocean and the earth seem 
(more or less) in various places to have interchanged 
their localities ; and it has been found moreover, on 
examining the successive strata that appear in the 
once depths of the ocean and beneath the surface 
of the present dry land, that there are fossil remains 
of whole races of animals that have become extinct 
at once, and of new races of animals that must have 
started or been called into being. There are succes- 
sive strata, in which we shall find fossil remains of 
animals, to which we have no successors in living 
creatures at present upon the face of the earth ; and 
at the time those animals must have been destroyed, 
new races, not one trace of which is to be found in 
the previous strata, must have started into being. 
Now the question is, How did the new race come 
into existence on the ruins of the old ? It is clear 
that the fossil races now found in the strata of the 
earth were destroyed as by an instantaneous stroke, 
and that the new races were next and no less sud- 
denly originated and called into existence ; this is 
perfectly ascertained : then the question is, How did 
the new races come into existence ? In the first 
place, naturalists admit, that no fermentation or 
chemical process with which we are acquainted, can 
originate organic and animal life. In the second 
place, all are agreed that there is no such thing as 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 45 

the running into each other of different and distinct 
races of animals. The mule, for instance, is the 
first and last link of his race ; he does not transmit 
the same species. If there be no possibility of life 
from chemical processes, if no blending and inter- 
mingling of races of animals, then it follows that if 
whole races were overwhelmed (the remains of which 
may now be seen in the British Museum), and if 
new races immediately afterwards started into being, 
that there was a fresh interposition of Almighty and 
creative power at the origination of a new race, and 
thus far a proof of a God. And thus the facts that 
have been discovered by modern geologists, and laid 
down and expounded so perspicuously by Dr. Buck- 
land, prove in the simplest and most satisfactory 
manner that there is a God — a living and acting 
God, interposing at successive periods of the world, 
to create and originate new races of living and or- 
ganized beings. This proof of the existence of a 
God alone has appeared to many most decisive. 

If we look at the present arrangement of matter, 
we are constrained to confess the presence of design, 
and this would show that a Designer exists. 

For instance ; if the stars had been placed more 
distant from each other than they actually are, or if 
they were possessed of greater density, or if they 
moved with greater velocity, there would be a jar 
and an interruption in that glorious harmony which 
ancient poets have noticed as the music of the spheres 



46 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

and of the solemn heavens. Is there no design or 
arrangement manifest in this ? 

If we look at the mechanism of man's body, we 
shall find it a perfect optimism ; that is to say, noth- 
ing can be added to it, to render it more adapted to 
the sphere in which it is to live, and nothing can be 
withdrawn from it, without leaving it less fitted for 
the uses for which it is required. If we look at the 
five senses of man, we can see evident tokens of de- 
sign. In the order of the way in which he is led to 
his daily sustenance, we see design. First of all, 
man looks at an object ; and by looking at a thing, no 
contagion can pass from the object to the man ; after 
he has looked at it, and the eye has pronounced it 
good, he then touches it, and the fingers are so formed 
that contagion is not easily communicated through 
them ; after he has looked at it and touched it, he then 
smells it ; and after this last sense has pronounced a 
favorable verdict, he then tastes it. Thus you see, 
that the sense that is most remote from risk is called 
into play in the first instance ; and the sense that is 
most easily affected is brought into exercise when the 
prior and less easily injured senses have all been sat- 
isfied. Xow I ask, if here are not evident marks of 
design ; and if of design, of a living God, who so de- 
signed it ? 

If it should be said, that all this, and all the ex- 
quisite anatomy both of men and of animals, is a 
fortuitous concourse of atoms, and that it is by mere 
chance that either are so constructed, then we ask — 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 47 

If it be true that chance has originated all, how is 
it that we never find the presence of the blunders 
incident to chance ? Do we ever find the horse ac- 
cidentally with wings ? Do we ever find the elephant 
with feathers ? Do we ever find the bird with four 
feet instead of two ? Do we ever find a centaur in 
fact as in fable ? Never. Yet if chance had origi- 
nated all, there would surely have been occasional 
deviations of this kind from the wonderful adaptation 
and harmony which we everywhere behold. In no 
instance do we find such blunders, such proofs of 
fortuitous concourse ; in every instance all is beauti- 
fully, skilfully, and regularly made. 

If we refer to the eye of man, we shall find in it 
one of the most beautiful proofs of design one can 
possibly investigate. It is well known, indeed, that 
the finest discoveries in optics are all approximations 
only to the perfection that is already displayed in 
the eye of man. By a power peculiar to itself, the 
eye is at once a microscope capable of examining the 
most minute things, and a telescope capable of see- 
ing the most distant things ; and this power of adap- 
tation by a contractile and dilating energy peculiarly 
its own, is given to no other material substance in 
the universe. 

If we examine the bones of the human body, what 
striking proof do they present of design and of the 
existence of a God ! — the spine, for instance, is so 
made, that, while it is the canal of life, it can bend 
backward or forward, and each bone will move to the 



4:8 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

right or to the left upon its socket, without risk. 
The head is so constructed that we can turn it to the 
left or to the right, bend it forward or bend it back- 
ward, almost move it round, and yet the bones upon 
which it moves, Avith their various joints, surrounding 
and encasing a substance so delicate that to touch it 
with a pin point would extinguish life, are so strong, 
that they can bear three or four hundred pounds' 
weight. Strength, variety of use and action, and 
elegance, are all concentrated here. Can all this be 
the result of chance ? Such chance would only be 
another name for a wise and a benevolent God. 

If we examine a bird of the air, the traces of de- 
sign are no less obvious. The feathers are most 
mathematically formed. Let me illustrate this : A 
pound of iron may be formed into a rod in two ways ; 
let us suppose it is to be formed into a rod exactly 
three feet in length — it may be either a solid rod, 
or it may be a hollow cylinder (thicker, though hol- 
low, and still three feet long). Now it is found by 
experience, that the hollow rod is much stronger 
than the solid ; this fact enables us to combine light- 
ness and strength. Now the quill ends of the fea- 
thers of birds are all made upon this principle. They 
thus contain the maximum of strength with the min- 
imum of weight ; and are so admirably adapted and 
adjusted to their purpose, that none but a designing 
God could have made them so. 

Let me allude to another illustration of design ; 
the mole — a creature perhaps the least known and 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 49 

the least examined, though no creature gives more 
evidence of design in its structure. If you examine 
its covering, you find it has a fur, exceedingly short, 
but so close that the dust through which it passes 
cannot permeate it, and so dense and smooth, as 
well as close, that the warmth which it retains from 
flying off must be very great. If you look to its 
head, you find a bony cartilage, evidently made 
for boring, and essential to its operations as a miner. 
You find the eyes singularly small ; so much so, that 
the common saying is, that the mole has no eyes at 
all, in order not to be inconvenienced in its opera- 
tions. It has a short and. strong neck, muscular 
and powerful fore feet. It is adapted with infinite 
exactness to its work. Now what does all this in- 
dicate ? That it is unquestionably fitted and meant 
for subterraneous excavations — to be the miner in our 
fields : the very creature and with the very habits 
which all natural history ascribes to it. # Now I ask 
again, can all this be chance ? Can a fortuitous 
concourse of atoms have originated such an exquisite 
piece of mechanism — a creature so admirably adapt- 
ed for all the habits by which it was to be charac- 
terized? Wisdom, and foresight, and design, are 
transparent in all this. 

If we refer to the tribes of the sea, we find addi- 
tional proofs of design. For instance, a certain 
amount of warmth is requisite to produce fishes 
from the eggs that the parent fish leaves on the 
ocean and in the rivers. Hence we find, the fresh- 

5 



50 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

water fish deposits its eggs at the margin of the 
river, where the temperature is evidently warmest ; 
the salt-water fish deposits its eggs on the surface 
of the ocean, where the sun's rajs most powerfully 
act ; the crocodile deposits its eggs upon the warm 
sand, and buries them in it, in order to be hatched. 
Now these creatures cannot reason : they cannot 
enter into the mysteries of chemistry; thty cannot 
solve a problem in mathematics ; they cannot ex- 
plain the phenomena of the material universe around 
them ; and yet they act with the skill and foresight 
with which the chemist and the naturalist would act, 
and embody in their instincts all the experience and 
knowledge attained by us during ten, twenty, or 
thirty years of study. 

Let me quote another proof of design in the at- 
mosphere around us. If there had been no atmo- 
sphere, man would have died the very moment that 
he was born into the world. If there had been no 
atmosphere there could have been no sound ; the 
sweet sounds of melody would be hushed — the har- 
monies of music would not be, and man would lose 
the exquisite joy that is to be derived from this ele- 
gant and beautiful accomplishment. If there had 
been no atmosphere, again, there would be no per- 
ceptible fragrance in the rose, nor sweetness in the 
perfume of the violet ; there would be no possibility 
of escaping contagion through the intimations of the 
sense of smell pointing out its existence ; man's sense 
of smell would be a piece of useless apparatus, if 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 51 

there were no air to be the vehicle of the particles, 
sweet or otherwise, that act upon that sense. Not 
only so, but if there were no atmosphere there could 
be scarcely any light. If the atmosphere and its 
refracting power were utterly destroyed, we should 
then see the sun to be a luminary possessed of tre- 
mendous brilliancy, and pouring down his rays direct 
upon the eyes of every one that looked upon him, 
from a fountain focus. There would be no such 
thing as twilight in the morning, or twilight in the 
evening ; but the brilliancy of meridian day would 
burst on man's eyes with dazzling and destructive 
effect, the moment he opened them upon the world. 
If there were no atmosphere to refract and reflect 
the rays that come from the sun, each ray of light 
would come with such velocity that it would destroy 
the sight ; that effect is prevented only by the ad- 
mirable adjustment of forces with which God has 
invested the sun and the atmosphere that we breathe. 
In consequence of the existence of the atmosphere, 
there is a pressure upon man's body of thousands of 
pounds weight ; there is a pressure equal to fifteen 
pounds weight upon every square inch of the body 
of each individual present. Now how is this to be 
borne without the animal machine being crushed to 
pieces ? There is a previous arrangement that there 
shall be small quantities of air in the internal parts 
of the body of man, which shall withstand that pres- 
sure, and make it to be unfelt and without pain. 
Here also is proof of design. 



52 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

In the next place, if we look to the composition of 
the atmosphere, we see further and very striking 
proofs of design. The atmosphere is composed of 
two distinct gases, called oxygen and nitrogen gas ; 
and the ratio of these is — twenty-one parts of oxygen 
to seventy-nine parts of nitrogen. Now both these 
gases are deleterious of themselves. ~No man could 
breathe oxygen without being rapidly destroyed ; 
and no man could breathe nitrogen without being 
instantly poisoned. Moreover, if there were much 
more oxygen in the atmosphere than these twenty- 
one parts to seventy-nine, the whole system of man 
would be in a state of excitement that would soon 
terminate in death ; and if there were a much great- 
er proportion of nitrogen than these seventy-nine 
parts, man would be incapable of breathing the air. 
Then how is it, that we find the atmosphere com- 
posed of these two gases so exactly and exquisitely, 
and so maintained, that it is just the very atmosphere 
made for man's life, and man's lungs the very lungs 
that were made to breathe man's atmosphere ? A 
thousand forces go to disturb the proportions ; every 
creature that breathes the air absorbs the oxygen, 
and throws out at every respiration nitrogen and car- 
bonic acid gas ; and every fire that burns, and every 
lamp that is lighted, consumes the oxygen and gives 
out carbonic acid gas. How, then, does it not come to 
pass, that with fires and lamps and millions of living 
creatures, men and cattle on a thousand hills, con- 
suming the oxygen and pouring out carbonic acid 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 53 

gas in its stead, the atmosphere in course of years is 
so deteriorated and vitiated that its proportions are 
altered, and it becomes unfit for man to respire? 
Why does not this very likely result happen ? The 
beautiful provision, the effect of wise design, to obvi- 
ate such a catastrophe, is this — whilst animals ab- 
sorb oxygen and give out carbonic acid gas, all vege- 
table substances absorb carbonic acid gas, and give 
out oxygen. And thus we find the vegetable world 
and the animal world exactly counterbalancing each 
other ; what is poison to the one, is the very nutri- 
ment and life of the other. Can this be chance ? 
Must it not be the arrangement of a wise and design- 
ing God? 

I call your attention to another and familiar proof 
of evident design, the home-born bee. The moment 
that this insect comes into existence, in the month 
of April, or May, or June (it may be), it begins to lay 
up a store, providing for the winter. Now how does 
it know that winter is to come ? Who taught the 
bee, that it was to provide its treasures for a season 
when those treasures could not be found ? It is an 
instinct evidently imparted by God with this design. 

It was necessary that the bee should treasure up 
the greatest quantity of honey in the least possible 
space. Now mark how this is arranged. There are 
three bodies (and only three) that can be placed close 
together without leaving any interstices ; these are 
the perfect square, the equilateral triangle, and the 
liexahedron, or six-sided figure. No other forms can 

5* 



54 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

be placed together without some interstices being left. 
And the third, the hexahedron, is at once the strong- 
est and the most capacious. Now how remarkable 
it is, that the bee has chosen the hexahedron, and 
that every comb in a hive of bees is that which con- 
tains the greatest amount of honey in the least possi- 
ble space, and leaves no interstices ! — Kepler, the 
mathematician, calculated the angle that must be at 
the bottom of the cell, in order to ascertain what 
would be the best to form the base of a hexahedron 
comb the most capacious and most fitted for juxta- 
position with others ; and the very demonstration 
which mathematical calculation proved, is exactly 
realized in every comb we find in the bee-hive. We 
have therefore in the bee and in the hive, and in all 
the exquisite adjustments by which they are charac- 
terised, the traces of palpable design — the evidences 
of an existing and a wise God. 

So then, if we look upward to the sky, and be- 
hold the sun and moon and stars all gloriously ar- 
ranged and harmoniously moving together, we are 
constrained to exclaim with the Psalmist — " The 
heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament 
showeth His handiwork." If we look around us on 
the earth — on its hills, its vales, its feathered, its 
breathing, and its animated tenantry — we are con- 
strained to acknowledge that a wise, an infinitely 
wise God must have planned and originated all. If 
we look into the ocean, which would instantly be- 
come stagnant were it not for its incessant tides — if 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 55 

we look to the atmosphere, which would be the foun- 
tain of pollution and the vehicle of miasma, were it 
not for the air-currents awakened by the sun — we 
are constrained to confess, that ocean's caves contain 
the traces of a God, that the broad bosom of the 
ground on which we tread bears all the traces of the 
footsteps of a God, and that the blazing sun and 
glorious stars, all in dumb but expressive eloquence, 
tell to us — -There is a God ; and that God how wise, 
how great, how good I 

If, after we have looked at the exterior world, 
and at man's body, that microcosm of wonders, we 
come to his mind, we shall find the equal proofs of 
infinite wisdom and of exquisite design, and therefore 
of a God who thus designed ; design necessarily im- 
plying a designer, If man were only possessed of 
the five senses to which we have referred, but had 
no intellectual powers of recollection and memory 
such as we now find, it would come to pass that as 
long as the husband beheld his wife, he would recog- 
nize her, but would cease, the instant she retired, to 
have any recollection of her; and if the father had 
nothing but his five senses, he would recognize his 
children while they were present, but the moment 
that distance, oceans and miles intervened, he would 
wholly forget their appearance. But to obviate this, 
there is placed in man's bosom an intellectual faculty 
called the memory, at once the most wonderful and 
the most powerful. It can treasure in its capacious 
cells the recollections of threescore and ten, yea, of 



56 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

a thousand years ; it can bring before us at once, 
and with the magic of a wish, paintings and persons, 
and scenes and landscapes, which it would take a 
hundred thousand square miles to contain, if they 
were all laid down on paper before us. The Daguerre- 
otype is but a faint approximation to this stupen- 
dous power, that can conjure up from the distance, 
at the moment it is desired, the scenes, the events, 
the persons and the transactions of years and genera- 
tions past. We can deposit in its stupendous depths 
countenances and landscapes, chronological events 
and facts and occurrences : and they are so mysteri- 
ously laid up there, so classified, that whenever we 
wish to make use of them, we have only to will, and 
memory pours forth spontaneously the treasures we 
require, ready for the disposition that we may have 
intended for them. We may quote another faculty 
in man's mind, equally demonstrative of a designing, 
creative God— Imagination. This power not only 
bears the proofs of wisdom, but the traces of vast 
benevolence. Take Scott, Milton, or Shakspeare (I 
pass no judgment on their writings or their charac- 
ter, I am speaking of them as poets) ; Milton, for 
instance ; — shut him up if you please in a gloomy 
cell, let the light of heaven cease to reach him — let 
the countenance of man cease to cheer him — yet that 
great poet will irradiate his cell with intellectual light 
— he will people it with ten thousand illustrious 
characters — he will make in it a spectacle more beau- 
teous than landscapes, and from being a gloomy dun- 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 51 

geon it shall appear to his eye, " in its fine frenzy roll- 
ing," a vast and glorious panorama. What a stu- 
pendous power is this, that can give delight to the 
prisoner in his cell — that can people the gloomiest 
solitude with the recollections of past and the fore- 
shadows of future years — that can originate dramatic 
sketches, and give birth to poems, as magnificent in 
conception as they are interesting in perusal. And 
if we examine minutely all the faculties of man's 
mind, we shall not only be struck with the proofs of 
design in each faculty apart, but with the evidences 
of benevolent design and wisdom, in the admirable 
way in which all those faculties are balanced. For 
instance ; it is known that the least disarrangement 
of the faculties of man's mind will produce a degree 
of mania or of madness ; if imagination be allowed to 
predominate, it will produce hypochondriasis, and if 
reason be allowed to predominate, it will produce 
excessive suspicion, doubt, perplexity, difficulty ; if 
the exquisite harmony that subsists in the mind of 
man is interfered with or disturbed, madness in some 
or other of its most hideous shapes is the natural and 
necessary result. But so exquisitely balanced are all 
these powerful faculties, that, if treated with ordinary 
care, they maintain their just proportions, operate in 
their destined spheres, and give happiness and pleas- 
ure to their possessor. And lastly, if we refer to 
that stupendous power in man's mind — Conscience — 
we shall see not only a proof of design, but of the 
existence of a just and holy God. Judas, unable to 



58 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

bear the tortures of conscience, went forth and com- 
mitted suicide ; and the murderer has often been so 
harassed by the fears and the spectres which con- 
science has started into being, that he has been fain 
to rush forward and proclaim his guilt, and suffer the 
doom that justice awarded him. What can this be 
but the echo of the voice of God ? We shall find 
no land and no race of barbarous and uncivilized men, 
in which the great landmarks of vice and virtue, of 
righteousness and wrong-doing, are not more or less 
faintly recognized, felt, and acted on. Conscience, 
therefore, not only proclaims the existence of a God, 
but tells us that God is a just and a holy God, and 
that he has appointed in man's bosom, even in the 
bosom of the guiltiest and the most depraved, a moni- 
tor that even in its ruins and its degradation will tell 
" of righteousness, of temperance, and of judgment 
to come. ,, 

These, then, are some evidences (and others might 
be adduced) — or a few specimens, rather, of the 
mode in which we can demonstrate the existence of 
a God, even from the open book of the world in 
which we live. It is therefore with exquisite beauty 
that one of our own poets declares the plainness and 
perspicuity with which nature tells us of a God. 
Milton says — 

" These are Thy glorious works, Parent of good, 
Almighty ! Thine this universal frame, 
Thus wondrous fair. Thyself how wondrous then ; 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 59 

Unspeakable ; who sitt'st above these heav'ns, 
To us invisible or dimly seen 
In these Thy lowest works ; yet these declare 
Thy goodness beyond thought, and power Divine." 

And another of our poets has said — 

" These, as they change, Almighty Father ! these 
Are but the varied God. The rolling year 
Is full of Thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring 
Thy beauty walks, Thy tenderness and love. r 

Wide flush the fields ; the softening air is balm ; 
Echo the mountains round ; the forest smiles ; 
And every sense and every heart is joy. 
Then come Thy glory in the Summer months, 
With light and heat refulgent. Then Thy sun 
Shoots full perfection thro' the swelling year ; 
And oft Thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks ; 
And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve, 
By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering gales. 
Thy bounty shines in Autumn, unconfined, 
And spreads a common feast for all that lives. 
In Winter awful Thou ! with clouds and storms 
Around Thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest roll'd, 
Majestic darkness, on the whirlwind's wing 
Riding sublime, Thou bid'st the world adore, 
And humblest nature with Thy northern blast. 

Mysterious round I What skill, what force Divine 
Deep-felt in these appear ! A simple train, 
Yet so delightful mix'd, with such kind art, 
Such beauty and beneficence combin'd, 
Shade unperceiv'd so softening into shade, 
That, as they still succeed, they^ ravish still. 
But wandering oft with brute unconscious gaze, 
Man marks not Thee ; marks not the mighty Hand, 
That ever busy wheels the silent spheres, 



60 15 CHRISTIANITY I ROM GOD '? 

Works in the secret deep, shoots streaming thence 
The fair profusion that o'erspreads the Spring. 
Flings from the sun direct the flaming day. 
Feeds every creature, hurls the tempest forth. 
And. as on earth this grateful change revolves, 
With transport touches all the springs of life. 

Should fate command me to the farthest verge 

Of the careen earth, to distant barbarous climes. 

Rivers unknown to soncr, where first the sun 

Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam 

Flames on th' A e 3 'tis nought to me : 

Since God is ever present, ever : -.: 

In the void waste, as in the city full ; 

And where He vital breathes there must be joy. 

When even at last the solemn hour shall come 

And wing my mystic flight to future worlds. 

I cheerful will obey ; there, with new powers. 

Will rising wonders sing. I cannot go 

Where Universal Love not smiles around ; 

Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their suns ; 

From seeming evil still educing good. 

And bettei then : » better still. 

In infinite progression. But I lose 

Myself in Him. in Light inenable. 

Come then, express 5 ise His praise ' 

Nature, however, we are constrained to admit, 
proclaims the existence of a God; but ming 

what that God is to us, Nature is « silent. 

Nature tells us. that there is a God, possessed of 
boundless wisdom an . :e: but 

nature's oracles do no: announce that that God will 
pardon sin. It gives us intimations from our con- 
science, that He is just ; it gives us intimations from 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 61 

the mechanism of our frames, that He is infinitely 
wise ; it whispers to us, from the broad surface of 
the world we gaze on, that He is a benevolent God ; 
but conscience, while it tells us that God is holy, 
tells us too, in the tones of a despair that it cannot 
dissipate, that man is a fallen, guilty, miserable sin- 
ner. I ask philosophy, How shall God be just 
while he justifies the ungodly ? I ask of physiol- 
ogy, with all its bright and its brilliant announce- 
ments, Will God forgive me my sins ? I ask of 
astronomy, as it discloses world piled on world, If, 
amid the brightness and the glory of those stars, if 
amid the splendor of those ten thousand lamps, it 
has discovered that there is "a just God and yet a 
Saviour?" And all nature is dumb. Astronomy is 
dumb ; the mechanism of man's frame is dumb. 
Still the great proposition, that must be solved be- 
fore my dying pillow can be peace, remains unex- 
plicated, unreconciled, unknown. I feel myself a 
sinner ; my conscience tells me, my memory tells 
me, my judgment tells me — and you, my brethren, 
feel, each one within himself — " I am a guilty sin- 
ner." I ask, then, how will you bear the blaze of 
that ineffable light, in which the angels are stained 
with folly and the burning seraphim seem touched 
with imperfection ? I ask, " How shall man be just 
with God?" No sweet tones can come from the 
caves of the ocean, from the mines of the earth, 
from the stars in the firmament, from the discoveries 
of philosophy, from propositions, from sciences ; all 

6 



62 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

there is dumb, hopelessly dumb. Where, then, 
shall I find it ? Go with me, reader, to Him, whose 
dying cry is still heard, "My God, My God, why 
hast Thou forsaken Me ?" — and after you have 
marked the rending rocks and the mantled sun and 
the shrouded stars, and all nature convulsed with 
horror at the greatness of man's guilt and the stu- 
pendousness of God's love, then hear whispered 
from Him who spake as "never man spake," even 
from the crucified Nazarene, " Mercy and truth are 
in Me met together, righteousness and peace have 
kissed each other." Gaze into the face of nature, 
and God is veiled in darkness, in obscurity; in clouds ; 
you cannot fully see Him. Gaze upon the brow of 
conscience, and conscience tells you that God is 
armed with ten thousand terrors to destroy you. 
But gaze into the countenance of Jesus, and He 
tells you, in His own thrilling and merciful tones, 
that God "is a just God and yet a Saviour." 

We discover God from nature by a process of 
reasoning, much of which falls dull and blunt upon 
the ordinary ear ; but in the countenance of Jesus 
we discover God by testimony, which is the most 
impressive and the most certain of all intimations. 
For one witness to a fact is worth ten thousand syl- 
logisms for the independent establishment of that 
fact. Hence in nature God even at the best is 
dimly and imperfectly descried. But in the Gospel 
the Lord of glory has come forth from His bosom, 
the personification of His love, the exemplar of His 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 63 

holiness, the result of His wisdom ; and on Calvary, 
that sacred spot in the centre of God's universe, 
where the epochal hour " It is finished" struck, God 
can come down to me, and behold in me, sinner as I 
am, a child, a son — " and if a son, then an heir, an 
heir of God and joint heir with Christ" — and there 
I too can look up to God, and see no longer the an- 
gry and the offended Judge, but recognize my 
Father and Christ's Father, my God and Christ's 
God. When, therefore, we compare the uncertain- 
ties, clouds and darkness, that brood upon God as 
He is revealed in the book of nature — and when we 
look at the plainness and the perspicuity, with which 
God a Saviour is seen in the book of revelation — 
are we not constrained to exclaim in the ecstacy of 
admiration and of gratitude, " Thanks be unto God 
for His unspeakable gift," the Lord Jesus Christ ? 



CHAPTER III. 

IS A REVELATION FROM GOD TO MAN PROBABLE AND 
NECESSARY ? 

Those who are fully convinced of the great truths 
of the Gospel — who have felt their sanctifying 
power upon their hearts, and their peace upon their 
consciences, may say — such discussions are not prof- 
itable to us ; we want, they say, living nutriment, 
not disquisitions about the shell that contains it. 

These essays are not meant for you, but for oth- 
ers. Yet you may find some interesting fact you 
have forgotten, or read some illustrative truth that 
makes brighter if it does not make surer your faith. 

But the " body of Christ" is made up of several 
members, to each of whom a portion must be given ; 
and readers, like congregations, are composed of 
several sorts of individuals ; and those therefore, 
who are advanced in the Christian life must not 
grudge, if we try to meet those who are not advan- 
ced (or probably opposed) on first principles, and 
lead them step by step to this most important con- 
clusion — that the Bible has God for its Author, truth 
without any admixture of error for its matter, and 



REVELATION PROBABLE AND NECESSARY. 65 

salvation for its end. If I were the means of re- 
claiming one infidel to the knowledge and enjoyment 
of the Gospel, or of strengthening the convictions 
of one wavering mind, it would be worth while to 
spend and be spent in pursuit of even such a prize. 
I may not be the means of convincing some of what 
they are already fully convinced of ; this little work 
may be the means of their being able to meet the 
sceptic, and of their convincing him that our faith 
is no unreasonable, or improbable, or extravagant as- 
sumption. We live in times too when such knowl- 
edge is absolutely necessary. Assertion, however 
eloquent or influential the asserter may be, is no 
longer regarded as evidence — we must be able every 
one, and they that labor among others specially, to 
give to him that asketh them a reason of the hope 
that is in them. Now are you sui^e, reader, that you 
are able to give a reason, that will satisfy, not a 
Christian, but a sceptic, that your faith has no frail 
foundation ? That writing cannot be utterly desti- 
tute of good, which impresses upon our minds sub- 
stantial reasons for the faith that is in us, and en- 
ables us, when cast unhappily and in the course of 
this world's business into the fellowship of the un- 
believing, to convince them that we have not be- 
lieved cunningly devised fables. 

On the subject, however, of a Divine revelation, 
our immediate topic, I will proceed, first, to show 
that there is nothing inconsistent with analogy and 

6* 



B6 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

our experience in the fact of a revelation ; and sec- 
ondly, that there ivas great need for such a revelation. 
It may here, however, be proper to remark that 
by such revelation we mean pure undefiled and scrip- 
tural religion. Many have seen and rejected grievous 
corruptions bearing the name of Christianity. They 
have seen Christianity, not in its pure and unadul- 
terated glories, but in some form in which man has 
shaped it, or fresh from some of the moulds in which 
superstition has cast it. To reject Christianity in 
one of these, the form of Roman Catholicism, for in- 
stance, indicates to my mind a greater degree of 
attachment to truth and a nobler intellect, than to 
embrace it. In that system, inquisitions stained with 
blood, liberty perishing in prison cells, literature pin- 
ing away in cloisters, and female chastity and loveli- 
ness injured and destroyed in the abominable nurse- 
ries of convents and of nunneries, are proofs of the 
absence not of the presence of Christianity ; these 
are not the fruits, and this system is not the product 
of the Gospel of Jesus. For the infidel to say, " I 
reject such a system," is really to show that the fall 
has left within him remnants of moral sentiment not 
utterly extinguished, or obliterated. It was once 
told, by a French Pasteur, that he himself had wit- 
nessed a statue of our Lord in France decked out in 
the robes of a Jesuit ; on seeing which a Protestant 
minister most appropriately wrote below on the pe- 
destal — "Thus have they clothed Thee, my Saviour, 
lest any one should love Thee. This is just the type 



REVELATION PROBABLE AND NECESSARY. 6*7 

of Christianity in the form of Popery. Thus have 
priests and popes contaminated and dismantled thee, 
O blessed Gospel, lest any one should believe and 
Jove and cherish thee." 

Christianity is not a Church, a sect, or a shibbo- 
leth. It is the truth fresh from the fountain of 
truth — the Word of God sounding forth from His 
own eternal oracles. Churches, like earthen vessels, 
are frail and liable to decay. Christianity, the reve- 
lation of Jesus Christ, endures forever; forms are 
mutable as the clouds ; great truths are eternal as 
the stars. The religion I attempt to prove to be 
from God is the religion of the New Testament, and 
that alone — not carved into creeds, but pure and 
perfect as God has created it. This alone is Chris- 
tianity. 

But I must here observe, that tke infidel meets us 
with a preliminary objection — A revelation from 
God, he alleges, is contrary to all experience and 
analogies. This is his first objection ; and some will 
not listen to any other argument, until we convince 
them that a revelation from God to man is not con- 
trary to experience and analogy. 

A revelation is not contrary to experience. For 
how was the first man instructed ? He must have 
come forth from the hands of his Maker, perfectly 
able to discourse of flowers and fruits and minerals 
and stars. Where got he language ? Where got 
he names for the animal creation? Where got he 
instruction and experience ? God taught him. If 



68 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

he had not been taught, the first evening that the 
sun set he would have believed that the whole world 
was come to an end ; he would, otherwise, have per- 
ished from inexperience. It is a plain matter of fact 
— that God did at first teach man, and thus gave a 
revelation to man. Whether it be admitted or deci- 
ded that the Mosaic record is true, there must have 
been a commencement to the successive links of hu- 
manity. That first man must have been taught, and 
if the Mosaic record be, as we believe, a true history, 
Adam was instructed of God and created perfect in 
knowledge as well as perfect in all his powers. 

But apart from the Mosaic record, must we not 
be satisfied that there are in man's mind and knowl- 
edge elements which must have been instilled at the 
first ? Who communicated them ? Who gave man 
his first lesson ? must not language have been taught 
to man from heaven ? It was alleged by some scep- 
tics, that if you placed man in a savage wilderness 
he would instinctively know how to express himself 
in words ; but the experiment was once made, and 
it was found that he grew up dumb. An enthusiast, 
who went as far in the opposite direction, expressed 
his belief that if you were to isolate a man in a 
wilderness, he would be found to express himself in 
Hebrew ; the experiment was made and he grew up 
dumb. "Who taught man then? Perhaps you 
will say his fathers, and they were taught by their 
forefathers." But who taught them? There must 



REVELATION PROBABLE AND NECESSARY. 69 

have been a time when the first man was taught. 
Surely God must have taught him. 

There is, then, we allege, every probability that 
God has given or will give a revelation of His will. 
Can we believe that the God of nature is good, be- 
nevolent, and merciful, and yet that He will leave 
millions and millions more of the family He fashioned 
to grope in " darkness that may be felt?" Is it at 
all probable, that God would continue to leave His 
dependent progeny to grope in thick darkness, with- 
out sending one solitary ray from the inaccessible 
light in which He lives, to lead the ignorant to the 
knowledge of their dut}^, their destiny, and their 
God ? I say, the surprise should not be that God 
has given a revelation ; the matter of surprise would 
be, if He had not. And therefore instead of it be- 
ing improbable that He should give a revelation, we 
ought to hold it to be extremely improbable that He 
should have left mankind without one particle of 
light to direct as to their future destiny, hopes, and 
inheritance. 

All presumptions are in favor of the existence of 
a communication from God. Shall the earthly father 
rarely fail to communicate with his offspring, and 
will our Heavenly Father leave His without a dim 
light and audible voice — a sufficient directory amid 
the darkness of sin, the din of conflict, and the 
perplexities of the world ? 

But such a revelation of God's will is not contrary, 
but according to, our experience of nature. 



^0 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

The child is taught by its father ; the scholar is 
taught by its tutor: and the inexperienced is taught 
by the experienced. ISTow what is a revelation but 
just the extension of this plan, just the addition of 
another link ? If the young be taught by the aged, 
the stripling by the patriarch, the inexperienced by 
the experienced, we have only to add another link 
to the chain, and we come to the natural presump- 
tion that the world may be or has been taught by 
its Creator, the human family by its Almighty Fa- 
ther. A revelation, therefore, so far from being 
contrary to our experience or to the analogy of 
nature, is positively in full and perfect accordance 
with all that we see and find in the world around 
us. It is, in other words, but the addition of an- 
other link to what we see to be the evident chain, 
alon^ and through which knowledge travels. What 
is the nineteenth century, but the product of the 
eighteenth ? and what was the eighteenth, but the 
product of the seventeenth ? and what is all history, 
but the gray-haired fathers of the past teaching the 
children of the present ? and what is that present, 
but the inexperienced of to-day learning from their 
predecessors the experience of yesterday ? And 
what, finally, is revelation, but the great and the 
good Father bending the heavens and coming down 
and teaching His large family what He is and what 
they are? And if we wish to behold revelation 
personified in its most lovely form, we shall see it 
presented upon that occasion when Jesus knelt upon 



REVELATION PROBABLE AND NECESSARY. 71 

a hill-side in the midst of Palestine, with the twelve 
disciples kneeling around Him, and, as their spokes- 
man and their leader, said, " Our Father, which art 
in heaven." It was the loveliest picture that ever 
was presented; a Raphael and a Poussin would fail 
to convey by their expressive pencils the loveliness 
of that picture — the great God of heaven and of 
earth kneeling on the side of the bleak mountain He 
had made, and teaching His apostles, gathered around 
Him, to pray, " Our Father, which art in heaven !" 

In the next place, what is the nature of the in- 
struction that we derive, one from another? Is it 
not of an experimental and a moral kind ? In other 
words, when we see the patriarch or the aged indi- 
vidual teaching the group that is around him, what 
is the nature of his teaching ? He is teaching them 
all the dangers and the difficulties through which 
he has come ; he is telling them how to withstand 
this peril, how to overcome that trial, how to meet 
this emergency, how to unravel that perplexity. In 
other words, his instruction is moral aud directive; 
he teaches from the past how they are to comport 
themselves throughout the future. Is it not kindred 
lessons that God teaches in revelation — how we are 
to meet the difficulties, to overcome the trials, to 
vanquish the foes, and to inherit the glory and the 
happiness which lie before us ? 

Revelation, then, instead of being contrary to an- 
alogy and experience, is in full harmony with all 
experience and analogy* 



*72 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

But a revelation was not only probable, but it 
was absolutely demanded by the state of the world 
previous to the advent of Christ. 

I might show that there are wants in man's heart, 
which all the philosophy of a Plato cannot satisfy ; 
and feelings and perplexities in man's moral consti- 
tution, which the prescriptions of moralists cannot 
meet. I might show, that there is a consciousness 
of sin, and a dread of punishment arising from it, 
which cannot be stilled unless by what is intimated 
in the oracles of God. But I forbear, I will quote 
only facts. I will show, first, from a view of the 
state of the ancient heathen, secondly, of the modern 
heathen, and, lastly, of infidels themselves, that a 
revelation from God was absolutely necessary to 
save the earth from utter corruption. Left to itself, 
the population of the globe would have perished 
from its face, some by the hands of their enemies, 
others by their own. Creation sent up its deepest 
groans after its Creator. The human family uncon- 
sciously cried aloud for a word of truth and peace 
from Him that made them. Deplorable indeed 
were the views entertained of the character of God 
in ancient heathen times. By one party of heathen 
philosophers, God was regarded merely as a great 
first Cause ; in other words, as the first wheel in a 
series of wheels, and not different from the rest of 
the links that succeeded Him. Others of the heathen 
held that there was no God, but a kind of fatalism 
pervading heaven and earth, which necessitated fixed 



REVELATION PROBABLE AND NECESSARY. 73 

results, but that there was no superintending intelli- 
gent power. Another portion, the Epicureans, held 
that God was a Being wrapt in selfishness and self- 
complacency, and perfectly contemptuous of all that 
was doing in the world or transpiring amongst man- 
kind. Another portion held that there was a multi- 
plicity of gods — thousands, and thousands more, 
superintending the world ; and in Athens, such was 
the rage for gods, that the remark was made, that it 
was " more easy to find a god than a man ;" and 
such was their rage for idol gods, that at last, when 
that most expressive language was exhausted and 
they could find no more names for invented deities, 
they raised an altar to) (jcyvwoTu QeG, " to the un- 
known God," the undescribed god. Some of the 
gods which the heathen worshipped were among the 
greatest monsters that ever walked the earth. Mer- 
cury was a thief; and because he was an expert 
thief, he was enrolled among the gods. Bacchus 
was a mere sensualist and drunkard ; and therefore 
he was enrolled among the gods. Venus was a dissi- 
pated and abandoned courtezan ; and therefore she 
was enrolled among the goddesses. Mars was a 
savage, that gloried in battle and in blood; and 
therefore he was deified and enrolled among the 
gods. In short, there is not one lust that nestles in 
the human heart, nor one vice that deforms and de- 
praves human conduct, which was not positively 
deified, and which did not more or less characterize 
one of the gods in the Pantheon of antiquity. 
1 



74 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOT) ? 

Now if it be said, "Ah! but that was in an age 
not enlightened as the nineteenth centuiy is" — I an- 
swer, Are yoii aware that the very country in which 
there were such gods is the country in which, and in 
those very days, were such men as a Homer, a 
Sophocles, a Hesiod, a Euripides, a Plato, a Socrates, 
a Theocritus — the most distinguished philosophers 
and poets who ever adorned the history of mankind ? 
Are you aware, that the gods I have here described 
were worshipped in the very country where Homer 
lived and Plato taught — in the very land too, where 
the harp of Virgil resounded its Mceonian strains, 
and Cicero pleaded for the liberties and the rights 
of mankind — in the very country that gave birth to 
paintings which modern art cannot approach, and 
that produced statues which are still the master- 
pieces of the world ? 

But if we refer to modern heathens, we find the 
very same, if not a worse theology. If we turn to 
the Hindoos, we find they have ^ot less than three 
hundred and thirty millions of gods. If to the 
Chinese, they have gods in every house and in every 
grove ; and the missionary traveller GutzlafF states, 
that he saw upon signboards in China, " Gods made 
and repaired in this house" — than which surely there 
cannot be a more degrading and horrible evidence 
of the fearful idolatry and the wretched theology of 
that empire. In some parts of those eastern coun- 
tries, they worship snakes and serpents and lizards 
and crocodiles, and even productions of the vegeta. 



REVELATION PROBABLE AND NECESSARY. 75 

ble kingdom ; and such is their superstition, that 
they pray by windmills,, and suppose that if the 
prayer is placed in the sail of the mill and turned 
round by the wind, that prayer rises with singular 
acceptance to God. But if again you say — " This 
must be among a barbarous race" — I answer, Xot 
at all. The Hindoos are, in mathematical science, 
among the most accomplished people in the world ; 
they are supposed to be the first inventors of the 
highest branch of it — the differential calculus. The 
discovery of the mariner's compass and of gunpow- 
der are clearly and plainly attributable to the Chinese. 
Moreover the Hindoos have all the English litera- 
ture ; they have our Shakspeare, and our Milton, and 
our Addison, and our Johnson, all translated into 
Hindostanee — and even Hume's Infidel Essays ; all 
of which they read with great interest, and even 
with great admiration. They are not like the people 
of Tahiti or the South Sea Islands — a barbarous and 
uncivilized race ; but a scientific and enlightened 
people. And yet such is the theology that flourishes 
under the wing of high intellectual knowledge ! 

What now are the views of God entertained by 
modern infidels ? And let me preface my remarks 
here, by stating that whatever clear notions they 
have of God, they have stolen from the Bible, label- 
ling their plagiarisms with the light of nature, whilst 
in their wickedness they deny the source from which 
they took them. But we will take their own defini- 
tions. Lord Bolingbroke says that power and wis- 



76 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

dom are the only attributes of God, and that a su- 
perintending providence is an absurdity too great to 
be imagined. David Hume declares that it is un- 
reasonable to believe in a wise and a good God, and 
that the notion of future rewards and punishments 
is a mere piece of priestcraft. Hobbes said that 
vice and virtue, Creator and creature, were all terms 
invented by man, but not founded in reality. If we 
pass from our own countrymen to French infidels, 
Voltaire, D'Alembert, Mirabeau, and Diderot — they 
all declare that there is no God, that there is no 
responsibility, that there are no rewards and no pun- 
ishments in the world to come. 

Such are the views entertained respecting God, by 
the most enlightened and advanced nations of an- 
tiquity — such the views of the most intelligent among 
modern heathen nations — and such the notions of 
three or four of the leading infidels and sceptics of 
recent times. They are all equally wretched beyond 
utterance. Take them all, and place them, the best 
of them, beside the " I am that I am" of the illiterate 
Jews. Listen, after any or all of them, to the words, 
" The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, 
long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, 
keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and 
transgression and sin ;" and say which is from above. 

Havino- thus looked at the notions entertained of 
God, we would next briefly review the notions of 
morality entertained among the three classes referred 



REVELATION PROBABLE AND NECESSARY. 77 

to ; first the views of ancient heathens, next of mod- 
ern heathens, and lastly of infidels. 

One proof of the wretched views entertained of 
morality among the ancient heathen, is the notions 
they had of the nature of the gods. I have stated 
that Mercury was a thief, Bacchus a drunkard, and 
Jupiter a licentious and blood-thirsty sensualist. 
These gods were all the creations of the people, and 
the exponents of their highest belief. Now if the 
heathen made gods of such characters, this alone will 
show that their morality must have been of a corre- 
spondingly wretched nature. Again ; cruelty was 
practised among the ancients to an extent of which 
we have no modern instances. The ancient Cartha- 
ginians were in the habit of sacrificing children to 
their gods. The ancient Germans and Britons sacri- 
ficed human beings. The ancient Egyptians offered 
up yearly so many boys and girls to the Nile. The 
rites of Moloch were sanguinary beyond expression. 
Achilles, as related in Homer, immolated twelve 
Trojans. Sons and daughters were offered in sacri- 
fice in the public markets, and their parents accus- 
tomed to preside, and the wretched Helots were oc- 
casionally destroyed by thousands, in order to arrest 
the increase of the slave population. A creditor, in 
ancient time, could seize a debtor after so many days 
and sell him as a slave, or cut his body in pieces and 
send it to his wife and children. A father had the 
power of life and death over his children. Need I 
refer to the gladiatorial games, in which man fought 
•7* 



78 18 CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

with man, or men with wild beasts, while the ladies 
of the empire, the female aristocracy, gazed upon 
man plunging the sword in the breast of man, and 
then celebrated a feast in honor of the conqueror on 
the field whereon systematized murder had been 
committed ? Who is ignorant also of the fact that 
deformed children were legally destroyed ? If we 
look to the nature of their worship of the ancient 
gods, we find that murder and homicide were rites 
of peculiar propitiatory value and of frequent prac- 
tice. Cruelty was canonized. Lust was holy. In 
the temple of Venus a thousand prostitutes were the 
priestesses, and the accepted worship accordingly; 
in the temple of Bacchus, sensualists and drunkards 
were beheved to be peculiarly welcome to that god. 
Need I quote as proofs of the debasing immorality 
of ancient heathenism, the Aphrodisia, the Ludi 
Floriales, and the Lupercalia ? Crimes not fit to be 
mentioned were common. These were the scenes of 
profligacy and sensuality, and they disappeared or 
ceased to be celebrated in open day only before the 
light of Christianity. If we examine any or all of 
their religious rites and practices, we shall find that 
a foul and degrading immorality was their universal 
characteristic, with scarcely one ray of light or purity 
to alleviate the gloom. I might also mention the 
treatment of the female character in ancient nations. 
Woman at the best was but a slave in ancient Greece ; 
she was no more than a slave in imperial Rome. The 
laws of divorce were such as would have gratified 



REVELATION PROBABLE AND NECESSARY. 79 

the most devoted follower of Owen, or Socialist, of 
the present day. If a husband through passion or 
caprice chose to divorce his wife, it could be instantly 
done. She was regarded, not as his companion and 
his equal, but his slave. What is it, then, that has 
raised woman to that just and lofty position, which 
she now occupies in Christian lands ? It is the Gos- 
pel. And nothing has so much surprised and startled 
me, as to hear of females listening to the miserable 
sophistry of the lectures of the Socialist and Owenite 
schools. They little know the debt of gratitude they 
owe to the Gospel : they little know that it is Chris- 
tianity that has asserted for them the right of being 
the equals and the companions of the rougher and 
the ruder sex. But in ancient times there was no 
such equality. It is also known, such was the state 
of female education, that a learned lady was synony- 
mous with a dissipated woman ; a Corinthian, a fe- 
male inhabitant of Corinth, was a name that corre- 
sponded with courtezan. Aspasia, the admired and 
caressed of philosophers, would not now be admitted 
into decent society. The great philosophers of 
Greece, even those who rose highest in searching after 
the knowledge of God, were most of them gross sen- 
sualists. Such it is known was Socrates, and such 
was Plato ; even those who taught a proud and vaunt- 
ing philosophy on the banks of the Ilyssus and amid 
the groves of Academus, were in their private con- 
duct licentious debauchees. 

Let us look next at modern heathens, and we shall 



BO IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

find proofs of the prevalence of a yet more miserable 
morality. Belzoni states that the modern inhabitants 
of Gournoo live in the tombs, the Tibboos live in 
caves, and the Bornoos have no proper names. The 
Caraibs are still cannibals. These enjoy the light 
of nature. What has made us to differ ? Can there 
be any doubt ? In China a woman is a most de- 
graded and miserable being. Female infants are re- 
peatedly destroyed. Gutzlaff states in his journal, 
that in walking the streets of Pekin he saw an infant 
cast into a stream and just on the verge of being 
drowned ; as there were five or six individuals stand- 
ing by, he asked them why they suffered it to per- 
ish, "It is only a female," was their answer. From 
a calculation I have seen, I find that in Pekin alone 
there are twenty-four female suicides every day. 
The female character sickens at its oppression : " the 
iron has entered their souls," and taught them that 
life is but one scene of torture and of shame, and 
anxious to escape it they are notorious for suicide. 
It is well known, that among the Hindoos, up to a 
very recent period (and the practice is only now put 
a stop to in a measure by the energetic efforts of the 
British Government) the moment the husband dies 
the widow must lie down upon the funeral pyre, and 
be consumed to ashes with the dead body of her 
husband. In Bengal alone fifteen thousand widows 
were computed to have been burnt every year, be- 
cause their husbands had died. This then is the 
respect in which the female sex is held in those 



REVELATION PROBABLE AND NECESSARY. 81 

countries where Christianity is unknown. Infanti- 
cide, especially female infanticide, is so notorious in 
Hindostan, as to be subject of remark in almost 
every book that treats of the Hindoo character. 
Mothers seem even in this to indicate the unextin- 
guished nobleness of their nature, which a wretched 
superstition would try to crush ; rather than see 
their daughters treated in the way in which they 
will be in after life, they are glad to throw them into 
the nearest river to put an end to their wretched ex- 
istence. This is heathenism ; this is science-cultivat- 
ing heathenism. Anong the modern Hindoos, lying* 
as testified by Sir. John Shone, Governor-general of 
Bengal, and by many others, is almost reckoned a 
virtue ; a lie, which a Christian Sunday scholar re- 
pudiates as a disgrace and a shame, is there almost 
a virtue and an excellency : and, though denied by 
some, it is too clearly proved to admit of dispute. 
In India there is a class called Thugs, who fancy 
they shall get an addition to their happiness hereaf- 
ter for every human being they murder; so that 
murder is not only their trade, but is actually part 
and parcel of their daily worship. 

And now what is the character of modern infidel 
morality ? Ancient and modern heathen ethics are 
alike ; what is the morality of those men, who treat 
with such supercilious contempt the system of the 
Gospel, and profess to be in possession of a purer 
and higher faith ? 

Let us take, for instance, infidelity upon a large 



82 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

scale; let us go back to the year 1793. In France 
at that day, Christianity was dethroned ; the light 
of the Gospel, as far as the outward exhibition and 
acknowledgment of it were concerned, was almost 
quenched. The followers of infidelity had complete 
ascendency. The National Convention declared that 
the creed of France was — et No God ;" and they 
stood upon the graves of holy martyrs, and wrote 
" Death an eternal sleep ;" but with the marvellous 
inconsistency of poor miserable man, as if they felt 
they could not do without a God, they placed a har- 
lot upon the chief altar of France and worshipped 
her as " The goddess of reason *" and yet these, the 
harlot- worshippers, are the men, that despise the at- 
tributes of God as revealed in the Gospel of his Son. 
Robespierre, overwhelmed by the growing disorgan- 
ization, at length admitted that it was impossible 
society could hold together without a God, and that 
it would be necessary to invent one. Lord Herbert 
declares, that lust and passion are no more blame- 
worthy than thirst or hunger. Hobbes, the celebra- 
ted infidel, maintained that right and wrong are 
mere quibbles of man's imagination, and that there 
is no real distinction between them. Lord Boling- 
broke asserted, that the chief end of man was to 
gratify his lusts and passions, that he was so made, 
and when he gratified these he got his greatest hap- 
piness. Hume declared that self-denial and humility 
were positive vices, and that adultery rather elevated 
than degraded the human character, Kousseau 



REVELATION PROBABLE AND NECESSARY. 83 

taught, that whatever man feels, is right. Paine, 
the gross blasphemer, died of drunkenness. Vol- 
taire advocated the very depths of the lowest 
possible sensuality. The morals of Blount were ex- 
ecrable. Yet these are paragons of sceptical excel- 
lence. These are the examples, that are to be sub- 
stituted (" Wonder, heavens! and be astonished, 
O earth !") for the example of the meek and lowly 
Jesus. These are the patterns we are to follow, for 
which we are to part with Christianity : these are 
the principles we are to imbibe at the risk of being 
branded as bigots if we reject them. What a con- 
trast are they to those glorious principles revealed in 
the sacred page, that ennoble whilst they save and 
cheer whilst they sanctify the souls of the sons 
of men. 

I have thus, touched upon the subject in two 
points of view. I need not state, that almost all 
these sceptics were men of gross and licentious lives. 
The only exception (if it be one, but it has been dis- 
puted, and disputed with great probability) — the 
only exception is perhaps David Hume ; the bulk of 
them were men of immoral and licentious lives. 

We have one striking exhibition of an infiders 
brightest thoughts, in some lines written in his dy- 
ing moments by a man, gifted with great genius, 
capable of prodigious intellectual prowess, but of 
worthless principle, and yet more worthless prac- 
tices — I mean the celebrated Lord Byron. He 
says — 



84 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

" Though gay companions o'er tlve bowl 

Dispel awhile the sense of ill, 
Though pleasure fills the maddening soul, 

The heart — the heart is lonely still. 

11 Aye, but to die, and go, alas ! 

Where all have gone, and all must go ; 
To be the Nothing that I was, 

Ere born to life and living woe ! 

" Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen, 
Count o'er thy days from anguish free ; 

And know, whatever thou hast been, 
'Tis something better not to be. 

11 Nay, for myself, so dark my fate 
Through every turn of life hath been, 

Man and the icorld so much I hate, 
I care not when I quit the scene." 

Is this the fruit of infidelity ? Is this all a dying 
infidel's rest and hope ? Contrast it with the lan- 
guage of St. Paul — '•' I have fought a good fight, I 
have finished my course, I have kept the faith ; 
henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of right- 
eousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, 
shall give me at that day." How great the con- 
trast ! This last is worthy of man ; this requiem 
ennobles even dying man ; this looks like the creed 
of veracity, of virtue, and of God. 

How did most of all these sceptics die? The 
facts are on record. ^Yho has not read the account 
of the death of Voltaire, who admitted the excel- 
lence of the religion he ridiculed, than which nothing 
ean be more painful, and yet nothing else could be 



REVELATION PROBABLE AND NECESSARY. 85 

expected from the creed in which he was educated. 
It is said — " During a long life he was continually 
insulting the Scriptures and disseminating moral 
poison ; in his last illness he bent for Dr. Trochin, 
who when he came found him in the greatest ago- 
nies, exclaiming with the utmost horror, ' I am aban- 
doned by God and man/ " This is the man who 
applied the epithet, " The wretch," to our blessed 
Lord, and the motto appended to all his writings 
was, '* Crush the wretch ;" we now hear what that 
man's death-bed was. " He then said, ' Oh ! doc- 
tor, I will give you half of what I am worth if you 
will give me six months' life.' The doctor answered, 
' Sir, you cannot live six weeks.' Voltaire replied, 
' Then I shall go to hell.' " Now I will read you 
also the account of his death-bed given by Abbe 
Baruel. (t In his last illness he sent for Diderot, 
D'Alembert, and others of his infidel companions, 
but they witnessed only their own shame ; often he 
would curse these men, and say — ' Retire : it is you 
that have brought me to my present state ; I could 
have done without you all, but you could not exist 
without me.' They could hear him, the prey of 
anguish and dread, alternately supplicating and 
blaspheming God ; and in plaintive tones he would 
cry out, * O Jesus Christ !' — and complain that ' he 
was abandoned by God and man.' " And to crown 
all, this hoary infidel, this boaster against man and 
blasphemer of God, sent for a Roman Catholic priest, 
the Abbe Gualtier, to give him the sacrament ! ! Dr. 
8 



86 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

Trochin said, that the furies of Orestes could give 
but a faint idea of the state and conscience of Vol- 
taire. 

Mirabeau died calling out, " Give me more lauda- 
num, that I may not think of eternity and of what is 
to come.' , Paine, the vulgar infidel, died drunk 
and swearing. The atheist Hobbes said in his last 
hours, " I am now about to take a leap in the dark." 
The philosophic David Hume, who had the utmost 
moral fortitude, and the most of intellect and least 
of feeling, died jesting about the boat of Charon, 
the fabled ferryman, and passing the fabled Styx. 
It is matter of record, that Rousseau, a notorious 
debauchee, died saying, " God, I give Thee my 
soul pure and untainted as it came from Thy hands.*' 
Rousseau was Protestant, Papist, Jansenist, by turns. 
He lived in concubinage and adultery by turns, and 
consigned his illegitimate children to the Foundling 
Hospital. 

Behold, then, upon the one hand, the life and the 
death of the most noted infidels of modern times ; 
and behold, upon the other hand, to take another 
Scripture example, the death of the martyr Stephen. 
Behold the dying sceptic asking for opium to extin- 
guish sense and feeling and judgment — hear the 
blaspheming and the cursing of one, the despair 
and cries for a few more minutes of existence that 
start from the lips of another ; and then listen to the 
dying accents of the Christian martyr, while heaven 
burst upon his vision, "Lord Jesus, receive my 



REVELATION PROBABLE AND NECESSARY. 8? 

spirit/' I ask, Which is the death of the righteous? 
which creed has power ? which seems more worthy 
of God ?— and I feel each that reads will say, " Let 
me die the death of the Christian, and let my last 
end be like his." 

I ask now, after reading these facts, if there is not 
made out a necessity for God somehow and. some- 
where to interpose and speak, in order that men may 
hear. The state of ancient heathen theology shows 
there was a strong necessity for a revelation ; the 
state of modern heathen theology shows it ; the best 
views of infidels show it ; the morality of all of them, 
their life and their death, prove man's deep neces- 
sity of a revelation, to teach him to live holy and to 
die happy* We maintain that such a revelation has 
been given and is contained in this sacred volume. 
To see what sin has made man and where nature 
helplessly leaves him, read the first chapter of the 
Epistle to the Romans. To see what the Gospel 
makes man, to what pitch of glory and excellence it 
exalts him, read the eighth chapter of that same 
epistle. 

Let me urge one point in conclusion — the com- 
parative condition of the Jeivs and the Greeks* 
Here are the Jews, who never produced a Homer 
in poetry, nor a Praxitelese in statuary, nor an Ap- 
pelles in painting; neither painter, nor poet, nor 
philosopher, worthy to live through future ages ; an 
illiterate and unscientific nation. Here, on the other 
hand, are the Greeks — the most enlightened, the 



88 

most cultivated, the most learned of nations. Among 
the illiterate Jews we find so sublime a view and 
knowledge of God, that all man's efforts cannot add 
to it ; but among the Greeks we find such wretched 
notions of God, that language cannot depict the 
degradation of them. Xow I ask, how happens it 
that in the nation most distinguished for science, 
there was the most low and degrading theology, 
and in the nation signalized by a total want of liter- 
ature, there was a simple, and sublime, and elevat- 
ing theolocry ? The answer is obvious. In Greece, 
you have the result of man's groping after God, 
man's unaided discoveries concerning God ; in Ju- 
dea, you have God's teaching and revelation of 
Himself — a proof so plain that " he who runs may 
read." 

The Bible alone has reclaimed the human mind 
from darkness, and the human heart from despair. 
Its truths are the strong pillars on which the whole 
fabric of our personal and social prosperity reposes; 
it has terminated the direst woes, kindled the splen- 
dors of heaven in the deepest darkness, and made 
the wide wastes of moral desolation blossom as the 
rose. 



CHAPTER IV. 

IS THE BIBLE GENUINE AND AUTHENTIC ? 

It is a matter of fact, that Christianity has come 
into the lvorld sometime, and somewhere, and some- 
how. Its influence, its plastic power, are seen, heard, 
and felt. Evidences of this crowd around us. The 
past naturally gives its tone to the present, and the 
present is more or less the offspring of the past. 
The fall of Constantinople is at this moment evident, 
for it exerted an influence on the literature of Eu- 
rope, that is felt at this day : the crusades, in the 
eleventh and twelfth centuries, materially affected 
the political condition of Europe ; and by their sur- 
viving traces, the existence of both is proved. Chris- 
tianity is no less demonstrably a fact. It has left its 
tone and influence also upon kingdoms, statutes, im- 
perial rescripts, the literature, the poetry, and the 
science of the world, as is obvious to every reader 
or observer at this hour. There can be no dispute 
about the fact of its existence. Its effects are vis- 
ible ; the trophies of its victories, the footprints of 
its progress, are on the sands of time. JSTo past oc- 
currence has left so powerful a posthumous influence. 



90 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

The ceaseless waves of time have swept away the 
traces of Alexander's battles, and Napoleon's victo- 
ries. They have only cleared off the weeds that 
dimmed the imperishable marks of Christianity * 
The only question is—When was Christianity intro- 
duced ? who are its authors ? what are its claims to 
our belief as a system of revelation from God ? 

The first branch of the argument I shall unfold, 
will be an effort to show, that the Bible (or the book 
that contains Christianity) is genuine, and next, that 
it is authentic* — that is, the production of the writ- 
ers whose names it bears, and that it has come down 
to us in its genuine and unadulterated form. This 
will be our first (and a most important) demonstra- 
tion — that Christianity, as it is contained in the Bible, 
and as we have it printed before us, is precisely now 
as it was at first revealed. It may, in fact, be very 
easily shown that it is utterly impossible that the 
Bible can be a forgery of a period subsequent to the 
days in which it claims to have been written. 

Now, in the first place, the Jews were not only 

* Genuine means that a book is the production of the 
writer whose name it bears. 

There is a thousand times more evidence that the Gospel 
of John was written by him, than there is that the AvA^aka 
was written by Yenophon, or the Ars Poetica by Horace. 
The Jews hated the Christians ; and if the Christians had 
forged a book in after years, and ascribed it to a writer long 
since dead, the Jews would have exposed the forgery. 

Authentic means relating matters of fact as they occurred 5 
and entitled therefore to full credit. 



THE BIBLE GENUINE AND AUTHENTIC. 91 

opposed to the truths contained in the New Testa- 
ment, and to the whole of Christianity as a system, 
but wherever they were able they imprisoned its 
apostolic preachers, as they had put its great Founder 
to an ignominious death. If, therefore, at a period 
long subsequent to the death of Christ a number of 
men had appeared in the world, drawn up a book 
which they christened by the name of Holy Scrip- 
ture, and recorded these things which appear in it 
as facts when they were only the fancies of their 
own imagination, surely the Jews would have in- 
stantly exclaimed that no such events transpired, 
that no such person as Jesus Christ appeared in 
their capital, and that their crucifixion of Him, and 
their alleged evil treatment of His apostles were 
mere fictions. But we read of no such objection 
recorded or attempted. We find on all sides a con- 
current consent, among friends and foes, that the 
Bible was composed by the persons whose names it 
bears, under the circumstances and in the age 
wherein it professes to have come forth, and that its 
facts (whatever its doctrines be) are true. 

In the next place, I have in my possession a con- 
siderable portion if not the whole of the writings of 
three of those who are called the five apostolic 
fathers — that is, men who either talked with the 
apostles, or were personally acquainted with them, 
or lived contemporaneously with them ; the five were 
Barnabas, Clement, Hermes, Ignatius, and Polycarp. 
The first and third are of little value ; the last is 



92 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM OOD ? 

supposed to be addressed in the Book of Revelation 
as the minister or " angel" of the church in Smyrna. 
Now, in the writings of these fathers, from the year 
100 to the year 160, we shall find passages ex- 
tracted from the writings of St. Paul, from the 
writings of St. John and St. Peter, from the Gos- 
pels of St. Matthew, of St. Mark, of Luke, and of 
John ; and these extracts have sometimes the names 
of the apostles by whom they were written attached 
to them, and have also appended the declaration of 
these apostolic writers, that the Scriptures thus 
quoted were the inspiration of the Almighty. This 
is most important testimony. In these most early 
writers, with every opportunity of conversing with 
the apostles, of proving their statements and weigh- 
ing their arguments, we find whole passages of 
Sacred Writ verbatim as we read them in the Word 
of God — extracted, quoted, approved, and acknowl- 
edged as the inspiration of God, and just as now 
printed in the Epistles and Gospels of St. Paul, St. 
John, Matthew, Mark, and so on. And not only this ; 
but we find in the post-apostolic fathers, as they are 
called, namely, Justin Martyr, Ireneeus, Tertullian, 
and the two Gregorys, and Jerome, extending from 
the year 160 to between 500 and 600, frequent and 
large quotations from different parts of the Bible, as 
books bearing the names of the writers which we 
now find attached to them in our Bible ; and also 
stating that those writings were the inspiration of 
God, composed under His guidance, by the writers 



THE BIBLE GENUINE AND AUTHENTIC. 93 

whose names they bear. And, what proves the 
purity of our Bible, there is no real difference be- 
tween the passages quoted from it in these writings 
of the first five centuries, and those which we find 
in volumes of sermons accurately extracted in the 
nineteenth century and in the authorized version. 
During these five centuries, then — during the earliest 
five centuries of the Christian Church — we have 
writers quoting from the writings contained in the 
Bible at great length, passages the same as we read 
them, ascribing those writings to the authors whose 
names are now attached to them, and proclaiming it 
as a matter of universal admission among Christians 
that they were the inspiration of God. 

This, hovever, will not perhaps satisfy the sceptic. 
We therefore add that, the earliest rejectors of Chris- 
tianity* never disputed, that the Gospels according to 
St. Matthew, St. Luke, and St. John, and the Epis- 
tles, were actually written by the persons whose 
names they bear and at their professed date. For 
instance ; the subtle infidel Porphyry, who was born 
in the year 233, and Julian the Apostate, who lived 
in the year 331, and Celsus, earlier than either, men 
of acute minds, and who labored night and day to 
overturn the claims of the Bible, both admitted that 
it was written by the persons whose names are at- 
tached to it, and quote long passages from the Bible 

* Some of the most noted were, the Emperor Julian, 
commonly called the Apostate. Celsus, Porphyry, Cerinthus, 
Marcian. 



94 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

as unquestioned portions of its contents, and as writ 
ten by the men named as its writers. Thus these 
men, who hated the Gospel, and were anxious to 
overturn it, yet retained in their writings portions of 
that Gospel, just as we now find them in the Bible, 
and never think of disputing their genuineness ; de- 
monstrating thereby that the Bible is unmutilated, 
and that we have it now as it was in the first five 
centuries of the Christian era.* 

The next fact that I would adduce is, that trans- 
lations were made at a very early era of almost the 
whole of Sacred Writ. For instance ; the Septuagint 
is a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible made at 
least three centuries before the birth of Christ, and 
remains a proof that the Hebrew Bible as we now 
have it, is substantially the same Bible that was used 
among the Jews three centuries before the birth of 
Christ. That the Jews preserved the Scriptures un- 
mutilated is obvious from this fact alone, that our 
Lord never charged them with corrupting, though 
often with neglecting, the sacred text. He said they 
had "made void the Word of God by their tradi- 
tions ;" yet never once did our Lord charge them 
with mutulating or corrupting the sacred volume. 
Nay, so scrupulously particular were the Jews in 
preserving it, that they have counted the number of 

* Chrysostom employs this reasoning in his Sixth Homily, 
on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, vol. x. p. 47. 'E Ikuvoi 
cs oi kcli kad' hytoiv eip^xore; ttjv ap^aiorrjra fxapTVpr)Tat roig Pi@\toi$ 
oi Tcsoi KsAca'i' teat rov sSaravefornv rov ucr zkzivov. 



THE BIBLE GENUINE AND AUTHENTIC. 95 

words, syllables, letters, and paragraphs, in every 
book, and recorded also the middle word, the middle 
chapter or paragraph, and how many periods or sen- 
tences are contained in each book. This was done 
long* before the Christian era : it arose no doubt from 
superstitious feelings, but still it has been overruled 
to demonstrate the great veneration which the Jews 
always cherished towards the Scriptures, and the 
sacred watchfulness with which they maintained the 
text of them inviolate. There are extant nearly 
1,200 manuscripts of the Old Testament, all agree- 
ing each substantially with the other. The festivals 
too observed by the Jews in the days of our Lord, 
and observed to this day by their descendants, can, 
as matters of fact, be traced up to their recorded in- 
stitution, and are thus voices descending from Horeb 
and Sinai, and the Red Sea, attesting the truth and 
reality of the Mosaic records. Hesiod's theogony is 
a dim reflection of Genesis. The golden age of the 
poets is the tradition of the history of Eden. The 
division of time into weeks among all nations refers 
to the account of creation. In reference to the New 
Testament, I may observe, there was a translation of 
it in the second century into the Syriac tongue, in 
the third century into the Latin tongue, and in sub- 
sequent centuries into a variety of tongues, till ulti- 
mately it was translated into almost every language 
under heaven. Now, if there had been any depart- 
ure in subsequent ages from the sacred text, as it 
was inspired by the Spirit of God, and originally re- 



96 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

corded by the apostles, then by referring to the 
Syriac translation made in the second, or the Latin 
in the third century, we could discover the variance 
and expose the corruption. But if we take the sa- 
cred text as we now receive it, and compare it with 
that and the other early translations, we find that 
there is no contrariety, but on the contrary the most 
complete demonstration of the unmutilated character 
of the Word of God as we now possess it. 

It is here proper to state, that certain false and 
forced documents were brought forward in the third 
and fourth centuries, and were quoted by certain 
parties as the inspired word of God. Infidels too 
have said — The four Gospels are but a selection 
from a number of Gospels, and it was merely a con- 
clave of bishops or a camarilla of priests that deter- 
mined by a majority that the four Gospels you place 
in the Bible were alone inspired, and that the others 
were forgeries. Xow, when a document claims to 
be written in a certain age and by a certain individ- 
ual, if it be a forged document we shall generally 
find in it internal disproofs so decided that you can 
very easily reject it. This applies to all the pseudo- 
gospels which were concocted by heretics, and which 
were brought forward as written by the apos- 
tles. They were found to contain allusions and ref- 
erences to facts, customs, usages, and names, which 
did not exist till the fourth century of the Christian 
era. If those documents had been written by the 
apostles, how could they speak about things as mat- 



THE BIBLE GENUINE AND AUTHENTIC. 97 

ters of present occurrence, which did not occur till 
four or five centuries after they were dead ? To 
furnish a specimen of the mode of detecting such 
forgeries, I will refer to certain ancient Liturgies, 
which the Roman Catholics allege were drawn up by 
some of the apostles. In the course of controversy 
with a talented Roman Catholic on a late occasion, 
these liturgies were put forward as the inspiration 
of God ; and one of them, in particular, was said to 
be drawn up by the apostle St. James. Now to 
show how satisfactorily we prove it to be a forgery, 
I will appeal to the account given of this liturgy by 
Dupin, the celebrated, and I may add impartial, Ro- 
man Catholic historian. He says — " There remains 
only the liturgy attributed to St. James, which divers 
learned men have taken much pains to vindicate, but 
to no purpose ; for although it is more ancient than 
those we have already examined, yet we ought not 
to say that St. James was the author thereof, or that 
it was composed in his time." ISTow hear his reasons ; 
he examines the document, and ascertains its inter- 
nal, its post-apostolic character, by evidence. " 1 : 
The Virgin Mary is called in this liturgy ' the mother 
of God,' and the Son and the Holy Ghost are said 
to be f consubstantial with the Father ;' terms alto- 
gether unknown in St. James's time," and not known 
in the Christian Church till the third century. " 2 : 
We find there the Trisagion and' the Doxology (that 
is to say, the Sanctus and Gloria Patri), which 
were not generally recited in the Church until the 

9 



98 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

fifth century. 3 : There are collects for those shut 
up in monasteries ; can any man say there were 
monasteries in the time of James ? 4 : There is 
mention made of ' confessors ; ? a term that was not 
inserted in the Divine offices till a long time after 
James, according to the confession of Bellarmine. 
5 : In this liturgy there is mention made of churches, 
incense, altars ;" things, again, which did not exist 
till the third century. " 6 : We find many citations 
from the Epistles of St. Paul, the greater part of 
which were written after St. James's death. Neither 
ought we to object, with the cardinals Bona and 
Bellarmine, that these things were afterwards in- 
serted ; because it is not probable they should be 
added in so many places ; besides, the connection 
and ceremonies of the whole liturgy do not agree 
with the time of the apostle." In this document 
then we find so marked references to events subse- 
quent to the death of St. James, that no man can 
come to the conclusion that it was written by that 
apostle. This is more or less the case with every 
forged document, and is true of all the pseudo-gos- 
pels ; and if the Gospels and Epistles of the New 
Testament had been composed in the third or fourth 
century, we should have found allusions to then ex- 
isting customs or events, a peculiar phraseology, all 
belonging not to the apostolic age, but to the age in 
which the documents were forged, and these, as in 
all similar instances, would have been so abundant 
that acute and ingenious men would long ere now 



THE BIBLE GENUINE AND AUTHENTIC. 99 

have demonstrated the fraud. This is a specimen 
of the process that may be applied. The Epistles 
and the Gospels of the New Testament will bear, as 
they have already borne, the most sifting inquiry, 
the most penetrating inspection, and like gold tried 
in the furnace they will come out purer and radiant 
with a greater glory than when they entered it. It 
may be useful to give a modern illustration also of 
this. The Wesleyan Methodists not very long ago 
commemorated the centenary of Methodism. Sup- 
pose that on this occasion a book was produced, de- 
clared to have been published years ago, and to be 
the composition of John Wesley, and suppose there 
is found, in it a reference to the Roman Catholic Re- 
lief Bill of 1829, another to the Reform Bill of 1832, 
another to the equestrian statue just erected to the 
illustrious Duke of Wellington ; would it not be ob- 
jected, "Here are references to events that occurred 
near a hundred years after the death of John Wes- 
ley, and these references evidently prove that the 
document cannot have been composed by him. It 
is the forgery of one who seeks to palm it on the 
world as the production of that celebrated man." 
So is it with the Bible. If one could detect in it 
any reference to events long subsequent as having 
then transpired, we should have an internal proof 
of falsehood. But the fact is, it carries upon its 
brow the impressive demonstration of its parentage 
— the signature of God — the proof that it was com- 
posed by Matthew, and Mark, and Luke, and John, 



100 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

and Paul, and Peter, whose names are appended to 
their respective books in the Bible. 

The multiplicity of manuscripts is another evidence, 
which proves that the sacred Book has been handed 
down to us pure and unadulterated. There is at this 
moment existing the Codex Bezce, or the Cambridge 
Manuscript, as it is called, which one distinguished 
editor, Dr. Kipling, almost proves to have been writ- 
ten in the second century ; but the most learned of 
modern analysts of the claims of that manuscript ad- 
mit that it was written in the fourth or fifth century. 

We have another composed in the fifth century ; 
and hundreds of manuscripts written in the sixth, 
seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries. These 
manuscripts were transcribed by monks and other 
individuals in their retirement ; and if any subsequent 
mutilation had been introduced into the sacred vol- 
ume, these manuscripts drawn out by different indi- 
viduals and in different ages would make apparent 
the corruptions that had crept in. But the truth is, 
we find that the hundred and fifty thousand different 
readings, which Mills and Griesbach and others have 
collected, are most of them connected with letters, 
with accents, with commas and stops, and few of 
them with points of doctrine or practices of morality. 
Their number too proves the labor expended on this 
great subject. They are collected. from all the dif- 
ferent manuscripts written long previous to the dis- 
covery of printing ; and still the least accurate manu- 
script of the New Testament we possess does not 



THE BIBLE GENUINE AND AUTHENTIC. 101 

contain a single deviation from the received text 
which would vitiate one vital and essential truth. 
Where an alteration occurs it is seen to be an error 
in transcribing, by finding the point affected by it dis- 
tinctly recorded in other passages of Scripture. This 
is plain, that were all Griesbach's readings incorpo- 
rated into the sacred text, neither Infidelity, not So- 
cinianism, nor Romanism, would derive the least ad- 
vantage. 

But were the New Testament to disappear from 
the earth, it has been ascertained that nearly the 
whole of its contents could be gathered from the writ- 
ings of the controversialists of the first five centuries. 
The very disputes which we deplore in one respect 
are thus the means not only of preserving the sacred 
text, but of rendering its corruption on either side 
impossible without detection. 

All this is manifest proof, that a great presiding 
Power must have superintended the safety and trans- 
mission of the Word of God ; so that while it has 
passed through more dangers, encountered more 
difficulties, been scrutinized by more enemies, and 
more keenly, than any other book under heaven, yet 
it is of all books the most perfect, of all ancient pro- 
ductions the most unmutilated and entire. 

There is still another proof of Christianity having 

begun at the period assigned to it ; that presented by 

the sacraments and institutions recorded in the New 

Testament. Let us refer to the Sabbath. As far 

9* 



102 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

back as the seventh century, we find it observed all 
over the Christian world. In the second century it 
prevails over the Roman empire, is noticed by Justin 
Martyr and others as introduced by Christ, and in 
consequence of the resurrection of Christ from the 
dead. Now if any one had composed the New Testa- 
ment at a subsequent period, instituting at that pe- 
riod the observance of the Sabbath as a duty, would 
not thousands have protested against the innovation ? 
Would they not have said it is a novelty ? But none 
say so ; the son received it from his father, and the 
father from his sires, and they from the apostles, who 
recorded as they received the sacred institute. We 
cannot name a century in which the sacraments were 
not publicly solemnized ; and every time we now be- 
hold baptism administered, or the Lord's Supper ob- 
served, we have dumb but expressive proof of the 
true original and date of our most holy faith. 

If we refer not merely to infidels, such as Porphyry 
and Julian the Apostate — or to Christian writers, 
such as the historians of the Bible and the early 
fathers — but to heathen writers — we shall find the 
most distinct and unqualified admission of the main 
facts recorded in the Bible. For instance, Tacitus,* 

* Tacitus, A.D. 110, in his annals, B. xv. chap. 44, thus 
writes, " Auctor nominis ejus Christus. qui Tiberio imperante 
per procuratorem, Pontium Pilatum supplicio affectus erat." 
— "The author of that name, or party, was Christ, who 
was punished with death by the Procurator, Pontius 
Pilate." 



THE BIBLE GENUINE AND AUTHENTIC. 103 

Suetonius,* and Pliny,f three Roman writers, make 
(one or other) the most distinct admission of the his- 
torical facts that there was such a person as Christ, 
that He was crucified by the Jews, and that it was 
reported He rose again. If we refer to Macrobius, 
another Roman writer, we find in him, as in Celsus, 
an account of the murder of the infants by Herod ; 
and in this writer also we have an account of the 
great gloom, or eclipse, that overspread all Pales- 
tine at the hour of the crucifixion of the Lord of glory. 
According to Eusebius, there were in his day the 
records of the trial and condemnation of Christ in 
the archives of Rome, and accessible to all He ap- 
peals to them as evidence. So likewise do Justin, a.d. 
140 ; and Tertullian, a.d. 200. Celsus and Porphyry, 
in the second and third centuries quote verbatim from 
the New Testament facts they do not dispute, and pas- 
sages we read in our churches Sabbath after Sabbath. 
If then we take the testimony of Jewish, Chris- 
tian, heathen, or infidel writers— of critics, or rites, 
as the observance of the Sabbath, and of the solemn 
sacraments ; we see that they simultaneously com- 

* Suetonius, a.d. 116, chap. 25, on Claudius, writes, " Ju- 
dseos impulsore Christo, assidue tumultuantes Roma expulit." 
— " He expelled the Jews (or Christians, whose origin was 
Judea), from Rome, for their continual tumults, instigated by 
Christ." 

f " Carmenque Christo quasi Deo dicere secum invicem." — 
" That they sing together, by turns, a hymn to Christ as to 
their God." — Pliny, book x. page 97. 



104 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

bine to demonstrate that Christianity existed in the 
first century as a matter of fact ; that the Sacred 
Books are in the present century verbatim as in the 
first, and were composed by the very men whose 
names are now appended to them in the English 
Bible. We have, in short, the whole Bible, Old and 
[New Testament, precisely as it was composed by- 
Moses, and the Prophets, the evangelists and apos- 
tles, and all inspired of God ; and the man who dis- 
believes the genuineness and authenticity and uncor- 
rupted transmission of the Scriptures, notwithstanding 
the evidence we have given, must in consistency re- 
ject the genuineness of all works except those he 
sees written, and the authenticity of all records ex- 
cept of facts he himself has witnessed. 



CHAPTER V. 



IS THE BIBLE INSPIRED. 



Having shown that the Bible is genuine and au- 
thentic, let me now try to ascertain if there be reason 
for believing that it is inspired. 

The writers themselves claim inspiration. If they 
were not inspired the Book is an awful lie, and its 
destruction would be a benefit. If they were not 
inspired, their assumption of it is inexplicable ; if the 
apostles were bad men, it is quite clear they never 
would have spent their lives in inculcating the purest 
morality. If they were good men, they never would 
have palmed a falsehood on the world. The evidence 
is irresistible that they were good men ; and if they 
are proved to be so, then their own declaration that 
they were inspired by the Spirit of God, before any 
judge or jury in the world, would be recognized as no 
mean proof. It may be said, perhaps they were de- 
ceived. But were they men likely to be deceived ? 
Were they fanatics ? Were they wild enthusiasts ? 
Did their conduct show that they were madmen ? 
Do their writings show it ? The very reverse is the 
fact. Nothing is more sensible, or more consistent, 



106 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

or more composed, than the conduct, speeches, and 
writings of the apostles ; and the argument that 
would prove they were madmen, or fanatics, would 
prove almost any absurdity. 

The most impartial, acute, and honest men in all 
ages of the church have admitted the inspiration of 
the Scriptures. The apostolic fathers, the post-apos- 
tolic fathers, the ablest writers on such topics in 
subsequent ages, have with one consent held that 
this Book is inspired of God. They had examined 
its credentials, they had heard from their forefathers 
what was their judgment on its claims, and the 
unanimous conclusion of successive thousands is, that 
the apostles were what they professed to be — in- 
spired of the Spirit of God. This surely is entitled 
to some weight. 

The morality of the Bible is so pure and lofty, 
that nothing but inspiration can account for it. 
Look at the wretched morality of the heathen ; look 
at the equally wretched morality of the Rabbinical 
Jew ; and then mark the sublime and lofty morality 
of the Gospel, and say then if its holy and enduring 
and lofty ethics do not proclaim, trumpet-tongued, 
that God alone, the Author of all holiness, must 
have inspired and originated it. In the Bible we 
shall find, that some of the very words which the 
heathen employed to denote vices, are used to denote 
virtues, and admitted to be -virtues by all sound 
moralists. The word humble, for instance, was the 
epithet of a coward among the Romans ; to say that 



IS THE BIBLE INSPIRED ? 107 

a man was kumilis, was to say he was a craven and 
coward. But in the Bible, to say that a man is 
humble, is the highest commendation of him. And 
every enlightened and righteous person in subse- 
quent ages has admitted, that the Bible has re- 
deemed the word from its gross corruption among 
the heathen, and restored it to its proper place in 
the temple of pure and lofty morality. 

The doctrines of the Bible are so grand, so far 
above the reach of man's mind, that they alone pro- 
claim the Bible inspired. It never entered into the 
mind of the most gifted of the heathen to conceive, 
still less to define, the doctrine of the Trinity. Such 
a doctrine would not be invented by any writer of 
that age who designed to spread his name or tenets 
among the Greeks and Romans. But, apart from 
this consideration, it does not look like human in- 
vention ; it indicates an origin from above. It 
never entered into man's imagination to anticipate 
that God should be Man, and Man should be God. 
The Trinity and the incarnation are doctrines which 
human thought could never have invented, and if 
dreamed of never have hazarded. 

The perfect harmony — harmony without unison — 
evidencing not a transcribing one from the other, 
but inspiration from a common source — existing 
among the sacred evangelists, is another evidence 
that they were inspired by the Spirit of God. They 
were men of different habits, of different degrees of 
education, living in different parts of the world, in- 



108 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

fiuenced by different circumstances, but all record- 
ing the same truths, announcing the same doctrines, 
and varying scarcely by a single jot or tittle. In- 
fidels have ransacked every page, to discover dis- 
crepancies in the sacred volume ; but each alleged 
discrepancy, when it came to be examined, turned 
out to be not only harmonious with the whole, but 
also a new proof of the inspiration of the Scriptures. 
For instance, some fancied they had discovered a 
historical inaccuracy in the evangelist, when he says, 
that the high priest at the crucifixion of our Lord 
was Caiaphas, for in the Jewish historian, Josephus, 
it is stated that the high priest that year was Joseph. 
Infidels vauntingly said. " Here is a declaration on 
the part of those who profess to be inspired, that 
Caiaphas was the high priest ; but here is a dispas- 
sionate, because, they say, a disinterested historian, 
who says that it was Joseph ; it is evident that one or 
other must be wrong ;" and with the natural bias of 
scepticism, they determined that the evangelist must 
be wrong. But they were no less surprised than 
displeased, to find Josephus in a subsequent page 
recording that Joseph was also called Caiaphas ; 
which evidently shows that the evangelist gave the 
rio-ht name, and that the difference was seeming, but 
not real. This is a specimen of the supposed dis- 
crepancies which the opponents of revelation profess 
to have discovered. 

But the greatest evidence of all, by which the in- 
spiration of the sacred penmen is proved, is the stu- 



IS THE BIBLE INSPIRED? 109 

pendous miracles with which their announcement of 
the Gospel was universally attended. A miracle is 
Divine power setting its seal to Divine revelation. 
It is true, sceptics have exerted all their powers, in 
order to demonstrate that miracles are utterly im- 
possible ; but not only have their demonstrations 
been completely overturned by the writings of Reid, 
Butler, Stewart, Campbell, Horsley, and others, but 
still more triumphant evidences, if these were neces- 
sary, have been educed of the reality of the miracles 
recorded in the Gospel. It has been found that 
Celsus and Porphyry, the sceptics, and even Mo- 
hammed, admitted in their days that miracles were 
performed by our Lord and his apostles. They did 
not deny the miracles, they only disputed the infer- 
ences drawn from them. Such attestations are most 
weighty. In more modern times, it has been said 
by infidels, that nature is fixed, and that we have no 
right to believe that miracles can have ever occurred. 
But who, or what, fixed nature ? The will of God. 
And the same will that fixed nature in its frame- 
work, may transform, or change, or suspend the 
operations of nature when and where He pleases. 
Hume argues that all our knowledge of the phe- 
nomena of nature is derived from experience, and 
that our experience is uniformly against any miracu- 
lous occurrence. Uniform experience must be the 
experience of every individual of every age ; but 
what we allege is, that the experience of certain 
witnesses in the apostolic age differed from ours, in 
10 



110 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

that they Avitnessed what we have not witnessed — a 
miraculous interposition. And what we maintain is, 
that there is sufficient testimony in favor alike of the 
facts attested, and the credibility of the attestors. 
We are sometimes told that if we would show them 
a miracle then they would believe one, but that un- 
less they actually see a miracle performed, they can- 
not believe one. But how absurd and inconsistent 
is such reasoning ! It is as much as to say, show 
us Alexander the Great, and we will believe that 
such a monarch existed ; show us Julius Caesar, 
and we will believe that there was such a person; 
show us Bonaparte, and we will believe that he 
lived, and overran Europe with his victorious arms. 
We maintain that these miracles have been per- 
formed, and that there is ample and incontroverti- 
ble historical evidence that they were performed ; 
and we call upon the infidel not to demand the 
re -performance of a miracle which could lead to 
no good results, but to search into that historical 
evidence for miracles which does already exist. 
And if we prove that miracles were once per- 
formed, and performed in order to constitute cre- 
dentials of this Book, then there is plain evidence 
that God interposed, and set the imprimatur of his 
approval, the seal of his sanction, on the doctrines 
and precepts of the Bible. The wax attached to the 
lease or document, on which is struck the crest of 
the party, is valid at the end of centuries, and need 
not be repeated. So with a miracle. 



IS THE BIBLE INSPIRED? Ill 

An objection frequently adduced by infidels against 
miracles is, that there have been many false miracles ; 
and therefore they cannot believe that there have 
been any true. They quote the lying legends of the 
church of Rome, and the ridiculous miracles, if mira- 
cles they can be called, that heathens profess to have 
seen or to have performed ; and with these they al- 
lege that they must class the miracles of the New 
Testament. Surely all must see the absurdity of 
this reasoning. If, because there have been false 
miracles there never have been true ones, then by 
the same reasoning, because there have been bad 
shillings, there never have been good ones, and be- 
cause there have been forged five-pound notes, there 
never have been real ones. In my judgment, the 
fact that there have been false miracles proves that 
there must have been sometimes true ones. Forgery 
always follows reality. But if the infidel say, that 
these miraculous pretensions in the sacred writers 
arise from that longing after the supernatural, which 
is found in man in every age, then I ask, who im- 
planted this universal desire after the supernatural ? 
If God implanted this thirst, would it not seem to 
imply that it was his design to gratify it at some 
period of his intercourse with man? We allege, 
however, that if we compare the miracles recorded 
in the New Testament, with the miracles recorded 
in the fables of heathenism, we shall find the con- 
trast so decided, that no doubt will remain that the 
latter bear the proofs of palpable imposition, while 



112 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

about the former there are such tokens of majesty, 
benevolence, and power, that every dispassionate 
spectator must admit, "Truly this was the ringer of 
God." I have in my hand at this moment a book 
containing an account of a number of ancient and 
modern miracles, said to be performed by priests in 
the dark ages : but they are so absurd, and most of 
them so utterly uncalled for, and so unproductive of 
any good result, that at the very first blush we must 
perceive they are lying legends. Lord Shrewsbury's 
Adolaratas, and the effects of the miraculous medal 
of Mary, which are recent pseudo-miracles, are mere 
fanatical absurdities. But in the miracles of the 
Scriptures, we see such evidence of power, of noble 
and benevolent design, such pure and superhuman 
doctrine accompanying them, that we are constrained 
to acknowledge that these miracles denote the inter- 
position of Almighty power, as the doctrine they 
attest implies the interposition of sovereign and glo- 
rious grace. 

If, in short, Christianity be not from God, whence 
is it ? This is a most important question. If we 

compare the morality of the Bible with that of the 
most celebrated productions of heathen philosophers, 
we shall find that the moral instructions of Jesus are 
so different from the morality of Plato, the precepts 
of the one so infinitely loftier than all the maxims of 
the other, the views of God enunciated by the Son 
of Mary so sublime and magnificent, and the views 



IS THE BIBLE INSPIRED ? 113 

broached even by a Socrates so paltry and unworthy 
in comparison, that we must come to the conclusion 
that Christianity is not at least an offshoot from hea- 
thenism. Can we trace it, then, to Judaism ? Did 
it evolve from it merely? If we will compare the 
miserable traditions of the Jews with the lofty and 
pure statements of the New Testament — or the most 
celebrated sayings of the most celebrated Rabbis 
with the simple and majestic announcements of Jesus, 
or the ceremonial and carnal administration of the 
Levitical ages with the " life and immortality" that 
are clearly brought to light through the Gospel — 
we must come to the conclusion, that Christianity 
is not the offspring of mere Judaism. Then whence 
can this pure, this exalted, this sanctifying system 
have originated ? It came not from heathens : it is 
too pure to have sprung from such an origin. It 
came not from Judaism : it is too spiritual and ex- 
alted to have emanated directly and immediately 
thence. Then, whence came it ? I can see no other 
rational conclusion than that Christianity came im- 
mediately from God. 

It was not a gradual introduction, progressively 
ripened : but it shot up at once in all the blossom of 
unprecedented loveliness — in all the beauty and fer- 
tility of great and good fruit — in the midst of the 
surrounding blighted and moral desert. It came 
into the world amid the gloom of human apostacy, 
like the sun bursting upon the darkness of midnight. 
It presented itself in the majesty of perfect man- 
10* 



114 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

hood ; a thing so utterly apart from the world — so 
obviously superior to the world — so evidently from 
above — that that mind indicates the greatest ration- 
ality and the least credulity, which believes the 
Scriptures to be a revelation from God. 

Bousseau was constrained to acknowledge, " The 
majesty of Scripture strikes me with admiration, as 
the purity of the Gospel has its influence on my heart. 
Peruse the works of our philosophers ; with all their 
pomp of diction, how mean, how contemptible are 
they compared with the Scriptures. Is it possible 
that a book at once so simple and sublime should be 
merely the work of man ? The Jewish authors were 
incapable of the diction, and strangers to the morality 
contained in the Gospel, the marks of whose truth 
are so sticking and inimitable, that the inventor would 
be a more astonishing character than the hero." — 
Works, vol. v. p. 215. 



CHAPTER VI. 



IS THE BIBLE INSPIRED 



Is the Bible inspired ? is, perhaps, the most im- 
portant question that can be asked. What is the 
Bible ? That book which is no longer the monopoly 
of a few, but the possession and the privilege of the 
million. It begins with Genesis and ends with Rev- 
elation. It rejects the additions of the Romanist, 
and refuses the subtractions of the Socinian. Moses, 
Isaiah, John, Paul, and Peter, are but the trumpets ; 
God only is the speaker. It has variety of style, 
but oneness of thought ; the varied inflexions of 
many voices, but the one breath in all ; the idiosyn- 
crasies of men in its outward manifestation, but the 
inspiration of God its inward vitality and substance. 
It is so common, so wide spread, that the sun never 
sets on its gleaming page. The east is opening it 
while the west is closing it. Its words go round the 
world like sweet music, and increasing generations, 
right or wrong, believe it to be what they call it — 
the Book of God ! 

I have referred to the argument from miracles. 
It alone is evidence of inspiration. We have incon- 



116 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

trovertible testimony to the occurrence of miracles. 
The wheels of creation ceased their action that men 
might hear God. The suspension of its laws was 
the evidence of the interposition of God, and if such 
suspension took place in order to call man's attention 
to what proclaims itself God's word, then is the 
Bible inspired. Omnipotent power is the pedestal 
of inspired truth. The hand of God visibly holds 
the lamp of life divine. No need is there of repeti- 
tion. The incessant repetition of a miracle would 
destroy its value. 

A powerful proof of the inspiration of the Bible 
cumulative with years, is prophecy. Two objections, 
destructive of each other, are adduced against it. 

The first is, that all the prophecies of the Old 
Testament are so obscure, that Ave can make them 
speak anything. 

No honest man, who reads the predictions re- 
corded in the Psalms — in the Prophets, in the fifty- 
third of Isaiah, for instance, or those contained in the 
prophet Malachi — and compares them with the ful- 
filment recorded in the New Testament — can fairly 
say that they are so obscure, as to be capable of be- 
ing tortured or twisted in any way. One remark- 
able proof of this is the fact, that many of the Jews 
are so conscious of the exact delineation of Jesus of 
Nazareth in the fifty-third of Isaiah, that they have 
strained every nerve, and exerted every effort, and 
exhausted the resources of absurdity, to prove that 



IS THE BIBLE INSPIRED? 117 

that chapter was not originally in the book of Isaiah : 
an effort as hopeless as it is wicked. 

The next objection is of a very opposite descrip- 
tion — That the prophecies respecting the Messiah 
have evidently been foisted into the Old Testament 
by Christians, subsequent to the events. 

Now we have seen that the translations which 
have been made from the Scriptures in every age, 
the Greek Septuagint for instance, made at least 
three hundred years before the advent of Christ — 
the fact that our Lord never charged the Jews with 
mutilating the Old Testament — the extracts from the 
Sacred Scriptures contained in a variety of books 
and documents — the quotations embosomed in the 
folios of the fathers, word for word as in our Bible — 
all go to prove, that the charge that any book or 
chapter has been foisted in is utterly untenable. 

But is it not a most curious fact, that one infidel 
says they are so obscure that we cannot make any- 
thing of them, and another infidel says that they are 
so plain and clear that they must have been foisted 
in at a subsequent period ? May we not quote both 
the objectors as auxiliaries in our defence ? When 
one thus contradicts another, it shows that the cause 
is not altogether of the most tenable kind. 

A prophecy was delivered two thousand years be- 
fore the advent of Christ, that the descendants of 
Shem and of Japheth should be civilized and en- 
lightened, and that the descendants of Ham should 
be bondsmen of bondsmen, or slaves, to their latest 



118 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

posterity. All this has been to the very letter fulfilled. 
We find the descendants of Japheth in Europe, and 
the descendants of Shem in Asia. Now the Euro- 
peans, Asiatics, the Eastern and Western Empires, or 
the Greeks and the Romans, are admitted by all to be, 
as they long have been, the most "enlightened nations 
of mankind. But we find the descendants of Ham 
at this moment slaves and bondmen ; not merely in 
the West Indies, as recently, but even now to a greater 
extent than ever could have been believed, as has 
been too truly and painfully proved by the late Mr. 
Buxton, in his work written expressly upon this sub- 
ject. The descendants of Ham are slaves up to the 
present period ; thereby giving at this day the most 
palpable and yet unconscious fulfilment of a predic- 
tion delivered more than four thousand years ago. 

It was said of Ishmael that his descendants should 
be " wild-ass men," that their hand should be against 
every man, and every man's hand against them, that 
they should be unsettled and dwell in tents. Now 
any traveller or historian will testify, that the de- 
scendants of Ishmael at this moment are the wander- 
ing Arabs ; in whose case and condition we have 
the literal and exact fulfilment of an ancient prophecy, 
upwards of four thousand years ago. 

If we take the predictionsrespectmg Babylon and 
Nineveh in Isaiah and Jeremiah on the one hand, and 
what infidel as well as Christian travellers have de- 
scribed in their writings on the other, we shall see 
that every prophecy has been fulfilled, not merely in 



IS THE BIBLE INSPIRED"? 119 

the bulk, but even in its jots and tittles, in the de- 
struction of those cities. 

Full four thousand years ago, and at subsequent 
periods, prophecies were delivered and are recorded 
in Scripture, respecting the future condition of the 
Jews. It was said, that they should be long " with- 
out a sacrifice and without an ephod and without an 
altar ;" that they should be scattered, and yet dis- 
tinct and separate, in all nations ; that they should 
be " a scoff and a by- word" amid all the kingdoms 
of the earth. Is not this fulfilled before our eyes ? 
Is not every Jew that walks the streets of London a 
dumb and reluctant witness to the truth of the word 

of God ? 

There is a prophecy respecting the Church of 
Rome in the New Testament, of a most minute char- 
acter, uttered eighteen centuries ago. Let us com- 
pare with it what are the known and avowed doc- 
trines of that awful apostasy, and we shall see it ex- 
actly fulfiled. " The mystery of iniquity doth already 
work ; only he who now letteth will let, until he be 
taken out of the way"— (that is, the Roman emperor 
will prevent its development, until he be overturned) ; 
" and then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the 
Lord shall consume with the Spirit of his mouth, and 
shall destroy with the brightness of his coming : even 
him whose coming is after the working of Satan, 
with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with 
all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that 
perish." And again, in the first epistle of St. Paul 



120 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

to Timothy : — " Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, 
that in the latter times some shall depart from the 
faith' ' (implying that they had formerly been of the 
faith) ; " giving heed to seducing spirits and doc- 
trines of devils" (of demons that is, of men canonized) ; 
" speaking lies in hypocrisy ; having their consciences 
seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and 
commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath 
created to be received with thanksgiving of them 
which believe and know the truth." The Rev. Mr, 
Nangle, a Protestant minister in the island of Achill, 
stated in his interesting periodical, called The Achill 
Herald, that on one of his fellow-laborers, a Christian 
minister, reading this passage to a number of Roman 
Catholics in that island, they replied — "This evi- 
dently describes our clergy, but you have a printing- 
press in the island, and you must have put this into 
the Bible in order to fasten it upon our clergy." This 
is a striking testimony to the fact, that the prophecy 
is a true and natural delineation of that dreadful and 
antichristian apostasy, of which they were the vic- 
tims. If we refer to the seventeenth and eighteenth 
chapters of the Apocalypse we shall find a still more 
expanded description of that superstition. Each 
prediction in which the apostle Paul and the evan- 
gelist John so minutely described and predicted that 
apostasy, proves they wrote under the inspiration 
and guidance of Him who saw the future clearly as 
the present. 

I might also refer to the seven Churches of Asia, 



IS THE BIBLE INSPIRED? 12i 

which have been preserved or destroyed, more or 
less perpetuated or swept away, accordkig to the ex- 
tent of the promise or the threatening contained in 
the second and third chapters of the book of the 
Eevelation. Thus do Tyre from its bleak strand, and 
Babylon from its molten masses, Sodom and Gomor- 
rah from their ashes, Nineveh from its rocks, on which 
the fishermen now bleach their nets, the Jew on our 
streets, the African in his chains, the Cossack on his 
steppes, and the Arab in his tent, the Church of 
Rome in her apostacy, and the Church of Christ in 
her brightening glory, Judah desolate, and Israel 
scattered and peeled — all, all proclaim with simul- 
taneous and irresistible force, that the Bible is the 
book of God — that " holy men of old spake as they 
were moved by the Holy Ghost" — that " Thy Word 
is truth." 

We must now specially turn, but as briefly as the 
nature of the subject will allow, to the predictions 
contained in the Old Testament Scriptures in refer- 
ence to the Lord Jesus Christ. Every feature which 
was predicted of the Lord Jesus Christ by ancient 
prophets was realized and found in Him, and in Him 
alone, when he appeared in the world, I will merely 
state two or three points. The first prophecy is, 
that the Messiah should come. We find this in the 
promise that " the woman's seed should bruise the 
head of the serpent ;" that " the glory of the Lord 
should be revealed ;" that "the desire of all nations 
should come." The fulfilment we have in the New 
11 



122 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

Testament, We read also in the forty-ninth of Gene- 
sis, the time when he should come,—" The sceptre 
shall not depart out of Judah, nor a lawgiver from 
between his feet, until Shiloh come ;" and also that 
He was to come at a time of universal peace, and 
while the second temple was standing, and 490 years 
after the rebuilding of Jerusalem. All this, which 
was matter of ancient prophecy, was literally ful- 
filled. Again, it was predicted, that the Messiah 
should be God and man together. It was said to 
Him, " Thou art My Son," and the Jews showed 
that by the title, " Son of God," they understood 
essential Deity ; and again, " He shall come forth, 
whose goings forth have been of old and forever ;" 
and also it was predicted, that He should be de- 
scended from the woman, from Abraham, from Jacob, 
from David. The fulfilment was, when " in the ful- 
ness of time God sent forth his Son, made of a wo- 
man, made under the law, to redeem" us. It was 
predicted, moreover, that He should be born of a 
virgin : " Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a 
son." And this was fulfilled. The place where He 
was to be born was stated : " Thou, Bethlehem Eph- 
ratah, though thou be little among the thousands of 
Judah, yet out of thee shall He come forth unto me, 
that is to be ruler in Israel." And tins was exactly 
fulfilled. A prophet, in the spirit and power of 
Elias, was to precede Him ; thus in Malachi — " Be- 
hold, I will send My messenger, and he shall prepare 
the way before me." And this was claimed by 



IS THE BIBLE INSPIRED ? 123 

Christ and the Baptist, as a prediction and portrait 
of them. It was predicted also, that the Messiah 
was to be a prophet ; " I will raise them up a pro- 
phet from among their brethren, like unto thee," the 
Almighty said to Moses. And " the woman said to 
Him, Sir, I perceive that Thou art a prophet;" and 
again, in John, " Of a truth this is that prophet ;" and 
in Matthew, " They took Him for a prophet ;" all, ful- 
filments of the prediction. It was predicted how He 
should make His public entry into Jerusalem — " rid- 
ing upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass." 
This was verbatim fulfilled. It was predicted, that 
the Messiah should be poor and despised, and be- 
trayed by one of His disciples for thirty pieces of 
silver. This was literally fulfilled. It was predicted, 
that Messiah should suffer pain and death for the sins 
of the world. This was literally fulfilled. It was 
predicted, that vinegar and gall should be offered to 
Him upon the cross, and that His garments should 
be divided, and lots cast whose they should be. This 
was literally and exactly fulfilled. It was predicted, 
that "not a bone" of the Messiah should be broken. 
This was literally and exactly fulfilled. It was pre- 
dicted, that the Messiah should rise from the dead 
and ascend into heaven. This was literally fulfilled. 
That He was to enlighten men, that He was called 
to be the anointed of God, that He was to offer 
Himself a sacrifice for sin, that He was to be a Sa- 
viour, that He was to be a Mediator, that He was to 
be an Intercessor, that He was to be a King, that he 



124 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

was to be the Head and Ruler of the Church, that 
He was to be exalted after his suffering — all these 
things zuere predicted, some of them 400 years, some 
of them 2,000 years previous to the time when they 
actually took place ; and now, when we recollect 
that these predictions seemed to be contradictory of 
each other, and when we see, nevertheless, that the 
seeming contradictions all meet and are harmonized 
in the person of the Lord of glory, is it not a far 
greater task upon credulity to suppose that the pro- 
phets wrote at random, than it is to believe that they 
were inspired by God, to Whom past, present, and 
future are transparent, and wrote under the influence 
of the Holy Ghost ? Suppose that at Berlin a man 
made a finger, that at St. Petersburg another made 
a thumb, and a third in another place an arm, a 
fourth in London made a hand, that in Edinburgh a 
fifth made a toe, that at Inverness a sixth made a 
foot, that in Dublin a seventh made a head, that 
every member of the human body was made of mar- 
ble in distant places, in different and distant times, 
and that at a certain period the sculptors assembled 
in London, and that when they tried to put together 
these different limbs, all made in different places and 
at different times, and without any communication, 
they formed that masterpiece of genius, the Apollo 
Belvidere, now seen on the Continent, what could 
we infer ? That they had a common archetype, that 
a great presiding architect must have actuated every 
hand, guided every chisel, instructed every sculptor. 



& 



IS THE BIBLE INSPIRED ? 125 

Now this is literally realized in the predictions and 
appearance of Jesus Christ. Prophets, at different 
times, in different parts of the world, described His 
various features in various terms and various forms ; 
and though they seemed before the fulfilment to con- 
tradict each other, yet when Christ comes it is found 
that every feature is realized in Him ; and He is the 
only and exclusive being in whom all can converge 
and be perfectly illustrated. Is it possible to con- 
ceive that the prophets wrote at random ? is it pos- 
sible to believe that it was by mere chance that they 
pictured the future Christ ? That man indicates the 
greatest amount of common sense, as well as the 
soundest philosophy, who concludes that they spake 
and wrote as they were guided and directed by the 
Spirit of God. 

There was also a series of predictions delivered 
by our Lord Himself. He gave a most minute de- 
scription of the fearful judgments that were to over- 
take Jerusalem, and the sad severities which were to 
be exercised upon its doomed and guilty inhabitants, 
about forty years before its downfall. This is re- 
corded in the twenty-fourth chapter of the Gospel 
of St. Matthew. Our Lord's first prediction was, 
that when the time drew near, " many should come 
in His name, saying, I am Christ ; and should de- 
ceive many." Now Josephus, who neither embraced 
the Gospel nor was favorable to Christianity, relates 
that, prior to the capture of Jerusalem, "the land 
was overrun with magicians, seducers, and apostates, 
11* 



126 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

who drew the people after them in multitudes into 
solitudes and deserts to see signs and miracles ; 
among these apostates were Dositheus the Samari- 
tan, who claimed to be Christ — Simon Magus, who 
said he was the Son of God — and Theudas, who 
pretended to be a prophet." This prophecy of our 
Lord was, therefore, literally fulfilled. The second 
predicted sign was, that wars and commotions should 
precede the destruction of Jerusalem; and these 
wars and commotions Josephus states took place. 
Four emperors, Nero, Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, 
suffered violent deaths within the short space of 
eighteen months ; and the emperor Caligula com- 
manded his statue to be set up in the temple, and in 
consequence of the refusal of the Jews, he threat- 
ened them with an invasion, which was prevented by 
death. There was also a prediction that " nation 
should rise up against nation ;" this took place in al- 
most every quarter of the Roman empire, and is re- 
corded by Josephus. At Alexandria the old enmity 
was revived between the Jews and the heathens, and 
the Jews perished by thousands ; the people of Da- 
mascus conspired against the Jews ; the Jews who 
dwelt at Percea against the people that dwelt at 
Philadelphia, and the whole nation of the Jews 
against the Romans. The third prophecy of our 
Lord was, " famine and pestilences" before the de- 
struction of Jerusalem. And Josephus, Suetonius, 
Tacitus, and Eusebius record, that famines and pes- 
tilences occurred in divers places, and of a very fear- 



IS THE BIBLE INSPIRED? J 27 

ful character, precisely as we find it predicted. The 
fourth sign was, "earthquakes." These literally 
took place before the destruction of Jerusalem ; one 
in Crete in the reign of Claudius, and others at 
Smyrna, Samos, Miletus, and other places in which 
the Jews were settled. Many cities were overthrown, 
and among others the celebrated city of Pompeii 
was almost demolished by an earthquake. These 
facts are recorded by heathen historians. The fifth 
prophecy of our Lord was, fearful sights and signs 
from heaven. And Josephus says, " There broke 
out a prodigious storm in the night with the utmost 
violence — lightnings and rains ; and these things 
(adds Josephus) were a manifest indication that some 
destruction was coming upon men, when the system 
of this world was thrown into such disorder." The 
same historian (not a Christian, but a Jew) says, that 
a star hung over the city like a sword, and a comet 
continued over it for a whole year ; also that when 
the people were assembled to celebrate the feast of 
unleavened bread, so great a light shone round the 
altar and the holy house that it appeared to be 
bright day-time, and this continued for half an hour ; 
at the same feast, the eastern gate of the temple, 
which was of solid brass, and was very heavy, and 
was scarcely shut in an evening by twenty men, and 
had bolts fastened very deep into the firm floor, was 
seen to be opened of its own accord about midnight ; 
moreover, before the setting of the sun, there were 
seen all over the sky chariots and troops of soldiers 



J>3 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

n. the*! armor fighting 1 in the clouds and surrounding 
cities : ako at the feast of Pentecost, as the priests 
vrere gofcg into the inner temple, they heard a voice 
;>3 of a multitude crying, "Let us depart hence. " 
And Josephus records it as more terrible than all, 
*hat an ordinary country fellow went about the city 
4ay and night, crying out, " A voice from the east, 
i voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, 
i voice against Jerusalem and the temple;" the 
magistrates endeavored by stripes to restrain him, 
but he still cried with a mournful voice, at every 
stroke of the whip, "Woe, woe to Jerusalem and 
the temple." These are some of the fearful signs 
and great sights from heaven which our Lord had 
predicted. Dr. Jortin remarks on these — " If Christ 
had not foretold this, many who give little heed 
to portents would have supposed that Josephus 
exaggerated, and that Tacitus was misinformed ; 
but as the testimonies of Josephus and Tacitus con- 
firm the predictions of Christ, so the predictions of 
Christ confirm the wonders recorded by these his- 
torians." And further ; another sign predicted by 
our Lord was the persecution of the Christians : and 
this we have recorded in the book of the Acts of the 
Apostles. Another was, the preaching of the Gos- 
pel throughout the world. This fact is also recorded 
in the Acts of the Apostles ; and also by heathen 
historians. It is supposed, upon very good evidence, 
that the Apostle Paul visited England and Scotland, 
and preached the Gospel there. The Christian 



IS THE BIBLE INSPIRED? 129 

fathers state that the ploughmen in the fields in 
every land were found singing the Psalms of David 
and the songs of the Gospel. Again ; it was pre- 
dicted by our Lord that Jerusalem should be be- 
sieged by the Roman armies. " Ye shall see the 
abomination of desolation, standing where it ought 
not;" "the days shall come upon thee, that thine 
enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass 
thee round, and keep thee in on every side." "The 
abomination of desolation" was the Roman army ; 
and Josephus records, that those warriors brought 
the Roman standard, the eagle, in the midst of the 
temple and into the sacred place. A trench, says 
Josephus, was dug round about Jerusalem, and of it 
he gives a very minute and particular account. In 
the next place, Christ enjoined the Christians that 
should be in Jerusalem to " flee into the mountains," 
and escape when they saw these things. And ac- 
cordingly it is recorded, that Ceestius Gallus came 
against Jerusalem with a powerful army, with which 
he might have taken it ; but, contrary to expecta- 
tion, and without reason, removed away from it, and 
immediately afterwards many of the principal Jewish 
people left the city, like a sinking ship ; and a few 
years after, when Vespasian was drawing near Jeru- 
salem, great multitudes ran and escaped for safety 
to the mountains and to Pella. Our Lord also pre- 
dicted, that false Christs and false prophets should 
arise, and should show great signs and wonders ; and 
this actuallv occurred. Moreover, our Lord de- 



130 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

scribed the miseries that should befall the Jews at 
that time. He says — " These are the days of ven- 
geance ; woe unto them that are with child and to 
them that give suck in those days, for there shall be 
great distress in the land, and wrath upon this peo- 
ple, and they shall fall by the edge of the sword, 
and shall be led away captive into all nations." 
Josephus says — " All the calamities which have be- 
fallen any nation from the beginning of the world 
were but small in comparison with those which be- 
fell the Jews ; within the city the fury was so great, 
that they filled the temple itself with continual 
slaughter ; nay, to such a height did their madness 
rise, that they destroyed the granaries of corn which 
should have sustained them ; all reverence to age 
and the ties of parent and child were annihilated • 
children snatched the half-baked morsels which the 
fathers were eating out of their mouths, and mothers 
snatched the morsels from their children also, and 
the young men wandered about the market-places 
like shadows, and fell down dead through hunger 
and famine." At length the famine became so ex- 
treme, that they devoured what the most sordid an- 
imals refused. A woman of distinguished rank, in 
hunger and desperation, killed and roasted her own 
babe from her breast, and had eaten one half before 
the horrid deed was detected. Others fell by the 
edge of the sword. At Scythapolis and Cexnea 
above 50,000 fell ; at another gate 2,000 fell ; at 
another gate 2,000 fell ; at Ptolemais 2,000 ; at 



IS THE BIBLE INSPIRED? 131 

Damascus 10,000; and Josephus records, that alto- 
gether, of different ages and sexes, 1,357,630 Jews 
were destroyed and butchered in various parts of 
Palestine and about Jerusalem. Lastly, our Lord 
predicted the total destruction of Jerusalem. " Your 
house shall be left unto you desolate; there shall 
not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be 
thrown down ; Jerusalem shall be trodden down of 
the Gentiles. " Now, Josephus states the leading 
facts of the fulfilment of this prophecy. Our Sav- 
iour's words were literally fulfilled, even when royalty 
tried to prevent it. Titus was very desirous of pre- 
serving the temple ; he had expressed the like de- 
sire of preserving the city too, and repeatedly sent 
Josephus the historian and other Jews to persuade 
them to surrender. The Jews themselves set fire to 
the gates, through which the Romans were endeav- 
oring to force an entrance, and one of the soldiers 
threw a burning brand into a window of the temple ; 
the flames soon spread, and the people and the sol- 
diers rushed to the spot, shouting and fighting ; 
Titus hastened to the place, calling to the soldiers to 
quench the fire, but they either could not hear or 
would not hear, and those behind encouraged those 
before them to set other parts on fire. Titus then, 
supposing that the interior might yet be saved, or- 
dered the crowd of soldiers to be beaten back ; but 
their anger, and their hatred of the Jews, and a cer- 
tain vehement fury, overcame their reverence for their 
commander, and one of them threw the fire within, 



132 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

where the flame then burst forth, and thus the whole 
temple was burnt down even contrary to the will of 
Caesar ; as if not one jot or tittle of our Lord's word 
should pass away, until all should be fulfilled. 

You have thus heard the prophecies of our Lord 
upon the one hand, and the fulfilment of them on 
the other — that fulfilment not recorded by a Chris- 
tian, whose testimony might be suspected by the 
infidel, but by Josephus, a Jew, a distinguished 
general in the service of Titus and Yespasian, and 
one of the most impartial and honest historians that 
ever wrote at any period of time. We here see one 
that was the poor son of a carpenter, Jesus of Naz- 
areth, without friends, without rank, without human 
learning, without aught of the advantages or accom- 
plishments of the world, standing up in the sight of 
a most magnificent temple, a temple so vast that 
Alexander the Great, it is said, impressed with its 
magnificence, declared that it must be the residence 
of a god, and proclaiming that in one generation, in 
thirty years, " not one stone should be left upon 
another," and giving the minutiae of the onset, the 
siege, and the slaughter ; and after the interval of 
thirty years, all was literally and exactly fulfilled. 
Must He not either have been God, or have spoken 
under the direction of the prescience and foreknowl- 
edge of God ? We established in a former chapter 
that the books are genuine and authentic ; that is to 
say, that they were written by those whose names 
they bear, and that there has been no foisting of any 



IS THE BIBLE INSPIRED? 133 

one passage into the sacred books, which was not 
written by the sacred penman. It was one of our 
proofs of this, that after they were written they 
were translated into various languages, into Syriac 
and Latin, and quoted by the fathers ; and never, 
let it be noted, has the charge been made that these 
prophecies respecting Jerusalem were interpolated. 
If there had been the shadow of a pretence for it, 
the charge would liave been reiterated a thousand 
times. I do then assert that the predictions of the 
prophets respecting our Lord, and the predictions 
of our Lord respecting the desolation of once proud 
and glorious Jerusalem, have been so exactly and 
literally fulfilled, even by the testimony of disinter- 
ested parties, that there cannot be a shadow of 
doubt, that God's finger is there, and that God's 
sanction and seal lie upon the face of the sacred 
volume. 

Having looked at these prophecies, we may ask 
again which is the most credulous— the man who 
believes that all this was the mere random and for- 
tuitous result of chance and sagacious conjecture, or 
the man who holds that all these predictions were 
penned by the inspiration of God ? The infidel pre- 
tends to be a freethinker : he boasts, that while we 
are the mere slaves of education, mere credulous 
fanatics, he is a freethinker. He is not a free- 
thinker ; he is the victim of gross credulity. I claim 
to be myself a freethinker ; I think for myself, and 
read, and infer from evidence. The infidel, instead 
12 



134 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

of being a freethinker, is a slave to his prejudices 
and passions. 

u He is the freeman whom the truth makes free. 
And all are slaves besides/' 

In looking at the opposers of Christianity, after 
all, it is natural to ask, What are the attainments 
and what is the character of those men, who (espe- 
cially in these days) make a parade of objections to 
the Scriptures ? Are they the Newtons, the Kep- 
lers, the Stewarts, and the Lockes, and the Bacons 
of the world ? Not at all ; but men who have occa- 
sionally peeped through a telescope, and then have 
learned to tell us that the stars contain no proof that 
there is a God ; men who have once in their life 
looked through a microscope, and then come to tell 
us that its revelations are not proofs of Deity and 
design. Yet such are the men, that stand up with 
an effrontery unparalleled, and tell us that all evi- 
dence is useless, that all claims are inadmissible, that 
Robert Owen is a better man than the apostle Paul, 
and the filthy abominations of Socialism more worthy 
of the acceptance of sinners than the inspiration of 
the holy and blessed Jesus. A simple contrast be- 
tween the writings of the one and the writings of the 
other, between the men who lead the armies of infi- 
delity and those who are the advocates of our holy 
faith, will at once demonstrate w r hich has God upon 
its side, and which indicates the possession of the 
true knowledge of His will. 



IS THE BIBLE INSPIRED? 135 

There is still another decisive proof of the divinity 
of the Gospel, worthy of our attention : viz., the 
character of Jesus Christ. 

Suppose that the history of Christ had been pressed 
upon our notice in the present day for the first time 
in our life. After we have read the characteristics 
of the age in which He lived, the expectations of 
His countrymen, the leading and popular theology 
of the day, we read minutely and study exactly the 
character of the Lord Jesus Christ. What do we 
find ? We see a character utterly unlike the age, 
entirely above and beyond it ; evidently in the world, 
but palpably not of the world, nor in any respect 
the product of the world. We behold His country- 
men, the Jews, looking for a temporal prince to sit 
upon a temporal throne, and to sway a literal scep- 
tre ; and we hear Christ telling them that all such 
expectations are absurd — that "the pure in heart 
shall see God," that "the peace-makers shall be 
called the children of God," that " they that hunger 
and thirst after righteousness shall be filled." In 
the midst of a nation that believed that the Messiah 
should be restricted wholly to themselves, that His 
blessings never should go beyond the hills of Carmel 
or the banks of the Jordan, we hear Christ stating, 
that all nations are to taste of His goodness — that 
" God so loved the world, that He gave His only- 
begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should 
not perish but have everlasting life." We behold, 
also, in the character of the Lord Jesus Christ, no 



136 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

assumption of any circumstantial superiority to the 
rest of his countrymen ; He was born of a lowly 
woman, brought up in the carpenter's shop and by 
the carpenter's knee, and educated probably at the 
village school. He walks with the rest of the strip- 
lings of His day, having no university education, hav- 
ing never sat at the feet of a learned Rabbi, possess- 
ing no noble, or royal, or national patronage ; and 
yet he promulgates doctrines, that the mightiest 
masters among the prophets never even dreamt of ; 
He prescribes precepts so pure and exalted, that the 
more they are analyzed and tested the more do men 
become impressed with their heavenly origin ; He 
proclaims a faith that was to embrace all nations, 
and a kingdom " not meat and drink, but righteous- 
ness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." We 
see in Christ nothing of the fanatic. If a fanatic 
and impostor, He would have availed Himself of the 
popular theology, and have turned the notions of the 
Jews to account — for this is the nearest way to rapid 
popularity ; but instead of this, He contradicts all 
their notions, and sends His Word like a ploughshare 
through their most beloved prejudices ; every word 
He utters in the fifth of John is a death-blow to their 
heart-woven fancies. How was this character formed ? 
Whence came this most awful and yet magnificent 
specimen of " whatsoever things are just, pure, true, 
lovely," sublime ? Whence His birth ? Whence His 
origin ? How will you account for all this upon any 
other representations than those of the Word of God ? 



IS THE BIBLE INSPIRED? 137 

There is nothing of the impostor about him. A de- 
ceiver of the world, assuming to be something, puts 
on a peculiar dress ; he affects certain eccentricities 
and oddities ; he draws a line between him and the 
vulgar ; runs into his palace, or his hall, or hovel, 
and assumes a mysterious dignity, a significant silence. 
But Christ puts on no such artificial assumptions ; He 
wears the fisherman's dress ; He sits down at the table 
of Peter ; He associates, for holy ends, with publicans 
and sinners ; He reasons with them constantly, "here a 
little and there a little ;" when the rich men came and 
offered Him their riches, He refused them ; when He 
might have made Himself a king, He would have noth- 
ing to do with a crown ; and if we desire to behold the 
loveliness and glory of Christ's character concentrated 
into one bright aureole, it was upon that occasion when 
He took the weeping babes from the mothers' breasts, 
and said, " Suffer little children to come unto Me, 
and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of 
heaven." How can we account for such a character 
at such a period, and among such a people, except 
upon the principles that are asserted in the sacred 
volume ? Must we not conclude, in the words of 
unsophisticated nature, as poured through the cen- 
turion's lips at the foot of the cross — " Truly this 
was the Son of God ?" 

There is one other fact, namely, the rapid progress 
of Christianity throughout the world, which is pos- 
sessed of no little weight in this discussion. 

Here was a doctrine opposed to the prejudices of 
12* 



138 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

men — in the very teeth of the popular and prevail- 
ing morality. The very things which the Romans 
had baptized as virtues, Christianity denounced as 
vices. Here was a system, preached not by those 
who walked on the banks of the Ilissus, or by the 
academy, or by the proud philosophers of the Sloa ; 
but by fishermen — by ministers, with two exceptions, 
illiterate, untaught, and unpolished, called the Apos- 
tles. It was a doctrine opposed to men's darling 
lusts, and to their dearest prejudices ; propounded 
without eloquence, and carried forward without pa- 
tronage. There was neither State connection, nor 
crown to irradiate them, no throne to back them, nor 
magistracy to aid them. And yet this doctrine, op- 
posed to men's popular feelings, their prejudices, and 
their lusts, preached by fishermen without eloquence, 
without countenance, without patronage, royal or 
noble, so rapidly spread and so widely prevailed, 
that the whole Roman empire came to be leavened 
with it: and at length the once degraded cross 
sparkled in the diadems of emperors ; and the name 
of Christian came to be the ornament and the boast 
of grateful millions. How shall we account for so 
rapid a progress of so unpopular principles, preached 
by so unlikely instruments ? 

Gibbon, the infidel, has tried, but most impotently 
tried, to account for its spread, upon what he calls 
second causes, among which he mentions the " in- 
flexible and intolerant zeal of the first Christians ; 
derived (it is tine) from the Jewish religion, but 



IS THE BIBLE INSPIRED ? 139 

purified from the narrow and unsocial spirit, which 
instead of inviting the Gentiles had deterred them.' , 
But how was it intolerant ? Did they use the fag- 
got ? Gibbon dare not say it. Did they have re- 
course to the sword ? This was never charged. 
Wherein did the intolerance consist ? It was in 
this ; they would not consent that Christ should be 
enrolled as one of the Dii minores in the Pantheon. 
They required that He should either have the whole 
temple or have none. What they asserted was, that 
Christianity is either absolute and all, or nothing ; 
that it must reign in supreme and absolute monarchy, 
or its ministers must die devoted martyrs. It is still 
the same ; it will have no compromise ; it admits of 
none. But, says Gibbon, it spread by the inflexible 
zeal |g£ its advocates ; but how came it to be re- 
ceived at first ? It spread by their zeal, it is true ; 
but mere zeal will never permanently promote a re- 
ligious system. Joanna Southcote had abundance 
of zeal ; but what has been her success ? Mere 
zeal never can permanently sustain a system, unless 
there be some portion of truth in it ; still less can 
zeal invent a system that will hold together for any 
length of time. Gibbon's next secondary cause of 
the progress of Christianity is — " The doctrine of a 
future life, improved by every additional circum- 
stance that can give efficacy and importance to it." 
Now how would the doctrine of a future life pro- 
mote a system among those who did not believe it ? 
The Romans would say, when they heard the doc- 



140 

trine of a future life — " It is very welcome, but what 
is the evidence of it?" The Apostles, therefore, 
must have stated evidence of the future life ; else 
the- fact itself or the creed that embosomed it could 
not have been received. His next cause is — " The 
supernatural gifts they possessed, which must have 
conduced to their own comfort, and the comfort of 
those around them." Supernatural gifts ! Does 
the infidel admit that their gifts were supernatural ? 
He did so because he could not do otherwise. If 
they were not supernatural, how could they conduce 
to " their own comfort ?" If I am practising con- 
scious imposture, that can never conduce to my com- 
fort. But if the miracles had been mere pieces of 
legerdemain, the Greeks and Romans were too 
shrewd to be imposed upon by them. Another 
cause, he says, was the pure morality of those who 
preached these doctrines. And was it merely the 
pure and lofty morality of the teachers, that con- 
vinced the mind of the truth of their doctrines ? 
How sublime must such morality be ! Another 
cause was " their preaching repentance of past sins, 
and the laudable desire of supporting the honor of 
the cause in which they were engaged." ISTow how 
could this convert Pagans ? Would it not repel 
them ? One can see no connection between the 
premises and the conclusion ; but the very reverse. 
Surely the desire of supporting the honor of a society 
must imply that that society was founded on what 
is good ; but how such preaching of repentance, and 



IS THE BIBLE INSPIRED? 141 

the desire of supporting the society with which they 
were connected, could convert infidels— is a deduc- 
tion of inferences from premises, such as we cannot 
admit to be warranted by the ordinary laws of logic. 

The miraculous preservation of the Bible is no 
feeble proof of God being its author and protector. 

The ancient Greek and Latin classics, which min- 
ister to man's lusts and chime in with man's fallen 
propensities, have all of them been more or less mu- 
tilated or lost. But the Bible, which rebukes man 
in truth's own undaunted tones, which man hates 
because it " prophesies evil concerning him" if he 
continue in his sins, remains perfectly whole and en- 
tire. Now how does it happen, — that the books 
which men cherished with parental solicitude are 
mutilated or lost, and that the Book which men 
would have been generally too glad to have exter- 
minated and destroyed is perfectly preserved ? 
Were a man to come into an assembly in 1847, who 
had survived eighteen centuries of persecution, who 
had been cast into the seas but was not drowned, 
who had been thrown into the fires but was not 
burned, who had been flung to wild beasts but was 
not destroyed, to whom prussic acid had been ad- 
ministered but he had not died, who had been buried 
and yet was not smothered ; would you not say, 
God must have sustained this man by a continuous 
miracle ? My dear reader, this Book is that man. 
The power of kings, the pride of nobles, the preju- 
dices of priests, whatever learning could snatch from 



142 18 CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

the arsenals of the past, or wit invent, or wickedness 
wield, have been hurled against it, and all have re- 
coiled broken, and lie as trophies at its feet. As 
soon may the cawing of the sea-bird uproot the rocks 
of the sea, or a swarm of wasps overturn the oak, as 
any assaults overthrow Christianity. 

" Truth crushed to earth will rise again, 
The eternal years of God are hers ; 
But Error wounded writhes with pain, 
And dies amid her worshippers." 

It has been buried in the floods, and it is not lost ; 
it has been thrown into the fires, yet it is not burned ; 
it has been exposed to the pestilential notes of a 
corrupt and superstitious faith, and yet it is not 
poisoned ; and now, in the nineteenth century, does 
it come forth from all the opposition and the perse- 
cution of eighteen centuries, to which it has been 
subjected in all its primitive integrity — as virgin gold 
cast into the furnace, more bright and beautiful by 
far than when it entered. 

But perhaps after all the evidences we have ad- 
duced, the most satisfactory is that contained in the 
words — " Come and see," " Taste ;" that is, the ex- 
perimental evidence. 

If we can only bring men to make trial of the 
Gospel, they will soon feel its Divine original. If we 
visit the hills and valleys, the glens and grey moors 
of Scotland, and enter any of the cottages of her 
people, and ask the patriarch of the village, " How 



IS THE BIBLE INSPIRED? 143 

came you to the belief that that Book called the 
Bible is the Book of God ? you never read the writ- 
ings of a Paley, or the Analogy of a Butler, you 
never studied the credibility of a Lardner, you never 
followed the eloquent demonstrations of a Chalmers ; 
how came you to believe it?" — "Come to believe 
it!" would the peasant say; "I have felt it in my 
heart and conscience to be the Book of God ; it has 
taught me truths I never knew before, it has given 
me a peace the world could not give, it has calmed 
my beating heart, it has stanched my bleeding 
wounds when the world was all bitterness and Marah, 
it has made all things new. Not the Book of God ? 
I have felt its power and tasted its sweetness ; I am 
as convinced of it, as that I am here a living, breath- 
ing man." 

To give in one illustration a summary of all this 
evidence. Suppose that an individual long an in- 
valid, has been restored to perfect health and strength 
by means of a tonic prescribed by some physician ; 
and that tonic port wine. A visitor comes to this re- 
covered man, and says, " It is not port wine that you 
have been taking, it has been water from the ditch." 
What would be his probable reply? He might 
justly say, " I will convince you from three distinct 
sources, that that which I am taking is port wine." 
First, he brings the wine merchant ; and the wine 
merchant states, that he saw the grapes in the vine- 
yard, he saw them prepared in the wine press, the 
wine put into the cask, drawn off into bottles, and 



144 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

placed in the chamber of the invalid. That is ex- 
ternal evidence. He next calls the chemist ; aiid the 
chemist says, he has subjected the wine to the usual 
and appropriate tests, and he is sure it is port wine. 
That is internal evidence. But the third witness is 
himself; and he says — "I can add the experimental 
to these evidences ; I was reduced to the verge of 
the grave by debility, and this has raised me up, re- 
newed my vigor, imparted strength to my constitu- 
tion ; I am persuaded that it is not water, but an 
efficacious tonic that I have taken." So can many 
say of the Gospel. The external and internal evi- 
dences are important ; but I must say, the most 
triumphant evidence is when one can declare — " The 
Book must be the Book of God, for I the widow 
have found in it a glorious Husband, I the orphan 
have found in it an everlasting Father, I the broken- 
hearted have found in it a healing balm, I the guilty 
have found in it forgiveness, I the distracted have 
found in it peace, I the pilgrim and the stranger have 
found in it a lamp to my feet and a light to my path ; 
Thy Word, O God, is truth." Can a lie regenerate 
souls ? 

Suffer me now to conclude by setting before you 
two creeds, that have been promulgated and preached 
among mankind. 

The first is The creed of the infidel : — 
" I believe that there is no God, but that matter 
is God, and God is matter ; and that it is no matter 
whether there is any God or not. I believe also 



IS THE BIBLE INSPIRED? 145 

that the world was not made, but that the world 
made itself, or that it had no beginning, and that it 
will last forever. I believe that man is a beast; 
that the soul is the body, and that the body is the 
soul ; and that after death there is neither body nor 
soul. I believe that there is no religion, that natural 
religion is the only religion, and all religion unnatural. 
I believe not in Moses ; I believe in the first philoso- 
phers. I believe not in the evangelists ; I believe in 
Chubb, Collins, Toland, Tindal, Hobbes. I believe 
in Lord Bolingbroke, and I believe not in St. Paul. 
I believe not in revelation ; I believe in tradition. I 
believe in the Talmud ; I believe in the Koran ; I 
believe not in the Bible. I believe in Socrates ; I 
believe in Confucius ; I believe in Mahomet ; I be- 
lieve not in Christ. And lastly, I believe in all un- 
belief." 

Listen in the next place to the other creed, human 
in its composition, but olivine in its substantial truths, 
as recorded in a simple document of great anti- 
quity :— 

" I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker 
of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ, His only 
Son, our Lord; who was conceived of the Holy 
Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pon- 
tius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried ; He de- 
scended into hell ; the third day He rose again from 
the dead ; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on 
the right hand of God, the Father Almighty ; from 
thence He shall come to judge the quick and the 
13 



146 IS CHRIST! AN7TT FROM GOD ? 

dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy Catho- 
lic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness 
of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life 
everlasting." 

Which indicates the truth of God ? Weigh the 
one, all contradictions and absurdities — weigh the 
other, all sublimity and truth — and you will address 
the believer in the latter, expressing your feelings in 
the language of one of old, " Where thou lodges 1 1 
will lodge, where thou goest I will go ; thy people 
shall be my people, and thy God my God." 



CHAPTER VII. 

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE BIBLE. 

The history of the Bible is the history of a per- 
petual miracle. It is legible in the light it has dif- 
fused; we can trace its effects and measure its prog- 
ress by the blessings it has deposited. A river 
springs in a remote and uncultivated desert; its 
fountain a hill ; its source the skies ; it rolls onward, 
and makes its channel a belt of verdure, and every 
acre it touches it transforms into an Eden, and every 
cottage in its course it fills with contentment, and 
every palace with wealth. 

Such is the progress of the Bible. Those hospi- 
tals for the sick are depositions from its waters ; 
those merciful laws are the creations of its power ; 
that lofty civilization is the golden sand that, more 
glorious than Pactolus, it has taken from the Rock 
of ages, and strewn as it swept along. It has en- 
tered into all conflicts, and come forth refreshed and 
radiant with terrible beauty. It has spoken to fierce 
disputants, and breathed into them a new spirit, and 
imparted a new coloring to their debates. It has 
found access to the cottage of the peasant and to the 



148 19 CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

palace of the king. Its holy words brighten our 
joys and assuage our sorrows. It is the light to our 
feet and the lamp to our path ; the guide of the err- 
ing, the hope of the good, the joy of the just. 

Its first and primary description is a Revelation of 
and from God. Truths veiled are by it disclosed, 
and truths too remote to be seen by human eye are 
brought within the horizon of our view. It is the 
only likeness of God on earth, and yet may not be 
worshipped. It shows us God just while he justifies 
the guilty that believe in Jesus — mercy pardoning ; 
holiness acquitting ; sin punished, and the sinner 
saved. We feel conscious of sin, and fearful of 
merited judgment and death. No hand seems able 
to help ; no door of deliverance appears to open. In 
this paralysis of hope we hear sounding from the 
throne of God, " If any man sin, we have an advo- 
cate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and 
He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours 
only, but for the sins of the whole world." 

The Bible is inspired. This is a precious attribute. 
"All scripture is given by inspiration of God." 
" Holy men of old spake as they were moved by the 
Holy Ghost." This gives us confidence in its dis- 
closures, and hope in its prospects ; we read it as the 
very word of God ; the true and faithful exponent 
of His will and of our obligations. It is because it 
is so that we can lean on the Omnipotence we cannot 
measure, and trust the wisdom we cannot compre- 
hend. 



GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE BIBLE. 149 

It is written. This is no ordinary ground of grati- 
tude. Had the inspired truths of Christianity been 
left to the transmission of oral tradition, they had 
perished from our earth long before they had reached 
us. The perverting tendency of tradition is not only 
traceable in history, but revealed in Scripture— John 
xxi. 21 — "Peter seeing him, saith to Jesus, Lord, 
and what shall this man do ? Jesus saith unto him, 
If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to 
thee ? Follow thou me. Then went this saying 
abroad," this is the oral tradition, "among the breth- 
ren, that that disciple should not die ; yet Jesus said 
not unto him, He shall not die, but if I will that he 
tarry till I come, what is that to thee ?" Thus the 
written Scripture corrects the unwritten tradition. 
ISTo such calamity can befall the inspired truth of 
God. They are in the shape of an indestructible 
stereotype, an immutable fixture — proof alike against 
the attacks of open foes and the corruptions of pre- 
tended friends. 

The comments may vary, like the clouds of the 
sky — the truths remain, like the stars, fixed forever. 

The Bible is translated. Written originally in 
Hebrew and Greek, it is now translated into almost 
every language under heaven. It was translated into 
English by Tyndal in 1530, by Coverdale in 1535, 
by Cranmer in 1539 ; at Geneva in 1560 ; by the 
bishops in 1568 ; and by the accomplished transla- 
tors of our common and authorized version in 1611. 
It is a translation of matchless faithfulness and beauty, 
13* 



150 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

with few imperfections, and these of no vital import- 
ance. 

The Bible is also inspired truth in the varied forms 
of human speech. It is the varied strain on one key- 
note ; it is God speaking, not in the language of a 
sect, but of all humanity. It is variety to prevent 
monotony, and unity to prevent discord. Like the 
overshadowing cherubim, the Old and New Testa- 
ment look at the same propitiatory ; and, like the lips 
of an oracle, give utterance to the same blessed 
truths. 

The Bible is a plain and intelligible book. True it 
is not without mysteries, incomprehensible, because 
revelations of the Infinite, and thus transcending the 
reach of finite minds. Great truths, like very high 
mountains, cast around them on earth very broad 
shadows. But the saving truths of Christianity, that 
is, those which are essential to the salvation of sin- 
ners — the nature and effects of sin — the atonement 
— justification — sanctification — privilege and duty — 
are fully and plainly revealed. 

The people are invited and commanded to read it. 
For them specially was it written ; and for them it 
is preserved. " These words which I command thee 
this day, shall be in thy heart. And thou shalt teach 
them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of 
them when thou sittest in thine house, and w r hen 
thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, 
and when thou risest up." (Deut. vi. 6.) "Search 
the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal 



0EKERAL CHARACTERISTICS OP THJS BIBLE. 151 

life, and these are they which testify of Me." (John 
v. 39.) 

The prime minister of Candace read the Scriptures 
on his journey, and an evangelist was sent to help 
him in understanding them. The Bereans searched 
the Scriptures, whether these things were so, and 
"therefore many of them believed." Timothy had 
"known the Scriptures from a child." 

"It is written," is the perfect standard; "To the 
law and to the testimony" the final appeal. Jesus 
so honored his own written word, that he preferred 
to quote from its pages solutions of intricate ques- 
tions to emitting replies from the depths of his own 
infinite mind. History may tell us of the fall of 
kingdoms, and the erection of dynasties, but it is 
silent on the introduction of sin, and the provision of 
a Saviour. Geography describes isles, and conti- 
nents, and rivers, and seas ; but it has no map of 
Eden, and no chart of the way thither. Astronomy 
speaks of suns, and stars, and systems ; but it is si- 
lent on the Sun of Righteousness, Geology reveals 
strange petrifactions, and fossils, and rocks, and pre* 
cious stones; but it excavates not the pearl of great 
price. Botany describes the hyssop out of the wall 
and the cedar that crowns Mount Lebanon ; but not 
the Tree of Life. 

These are all beautiful and useful in their place, 
but they must neither supersede nor be a substitute 
for the Word of God. Before its majesty science 
must bow, councils fall, and fathers veil their heads. 



152 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

One text from one Apostle outweighs all the opinions 
and traditions of Christendom. 

Every part of this blessed book is inlaid with 
Christ. 

The historical part is the record of the scaffolding 
that preceded His advent, and of the fabric that was 
carried on after His resurrection. 

The prophetic part gives testimony to Jesus 

Moses to His advent — David to His royalty — Isaiah 
to His priesthood — Micah to His birthplace — and 
the Apocalypse to His future glory, when His head 
shall wear many crowns." " To Him gave all the 
prophets witness." 

The promissory part of Scripture is full of Christ. 
The whole spiritual firmament glows with promises, 
as with stars of varied magnitude, but of enduring 
fixity. All their force, and beauty, and sweetness, 
are from Him. " In Him all the promises are yea 
and amen." 

The ceremonial part derives all its meaning and 
consistency from Him. He is the high priest, and 
the refuge, and the temple, the living water and the 
true bread, and the rock of ages. He is the body, and 
these are the figures. He is the truth, and these the 
types. He is the substance, and these the shadows. 

The doctrinal part of Scripture is full of Christ. 
His righteousness, His sacrifice, His intercession, are 
among the leading and distinguishing truths of 
Christianity. Of all the doctrines of the Gospel, it 
may be said, " He is all and in all." He is the Lord 



GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE BIBLE. 153 

our righteousness, the Lord our peace, the Lord our 
healer — the alpha and omega, the first and the last. 

The practical part is also replete with Christ. He 
has " left us an example. " His commandments are 
not grievous. His yoke is easy. His love is the in- 
spiring motive, and His law the regulating directory. 
Thus the whole of Scripture is eloquent with the 
testimony of Jesus. 

Let us then read the Bible as the very word of 
God ; let us approach it with solemn and reverential 
feelings ; let us read as if we looked upon the glory 
between the cherubim, or walked upon the floor of 
the Holy of Holies. We need the Holy Spirit to 
help us to understand it — not to alter, add to, or im- 
prove the Bible, but to purify and enlighten the 
minds of those that read it. We need an " unction' ' 
from on high — "a spiritual mind — a pure heart. For 
all this God will be inquired of. 

We must not read in order to establish a theory, 
but in order to discover truth. We may not read 
one series of texts to the exclusion of another. We 
must come as willing learners — obedient disciples — 
anxious only to hear God speak, and to obey what he 
enjoins. We must read doctrinal and practical parts 
with equal and unswerving impartiality. For this 
we need, and for this we must seek, the Holy Spirit 
of God. How precious, then, is the Bible ! It is a 
lamp to our feet, and a light to our path. It dis- 
closes the everlasting Husband — the eternal Father 
— the destiny of the soul — the hopes of glory. 



154 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

What ancient philosophers could not reach, chil- 
dren, through it, can now learn. Humanity is like a 
ship that has broken its cable, and is drifting in un- 
known seas ; and the Bible is its only chart that can 
guide it to a haven. 

Great gift of God to mankind !— it rekindles in the 
heart extinguished love, and relights the lamp of 
life, and restores the sabbath of the soul. To the 
grandeur of the man it adds the glory of the saint. 
It overarches the dreary caverns of despair with 
the bow of promise ; it sets duties in the bosom of 
benedictions, and precepts in promises; it offers 
pardon for the greatest sin, and gives dignity to the 
humblest duty. Well did Sir William Jones write 
— " I have regularly and attentively read the Bible, 
and am of opinion that this volume, independently 
of its divine origin, contains more true sublimity, 
more exquisite beauty, purer morality, more impar- 
tial history, and finer strains of poetry and eloquence, 
than could be collected within the same compass 
from all other books ever composed in any age." 

"The fairest productions of human wit," writes 
Bishop Home, " after a few perusals, like gathered 
flowers, wither in our hands, and lose their fragrancy ; 
but these unfading plants of Paradise become, as 
we are accustomed to them, still more and more 
beautiful ; their bloom appears to be doubly height- 
ened, fresh odors are emitted, and new sweets ex- 
tracted from them. He who hath once tasted their 



GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE BIBLE. 155 

excellences will desire to taste them yet again ; and 
he who tastes them oftenest will relish them best." 

Even Rousseau made the remarkable observa- 
tion: — "I will confess to you further, that the 
majesty of the Scripture strikes me with admira- 
tion as the purity of the gospel has its influence on 
my heart. Peruse the works of our philosophers, 
with all their pomp of diction — how mean, how con- 
temptible are they when compared with Scripture ! 
Is it possible that a book, at once so simple and sub- 
lime, should be merely the work of man ? Is it pos- 
sible that the sacred person, whose history it con- 
tains, should be himself a mere man ? What purity, 
what sweetness in his manner, what an affecting 
grace in his delivery ! What sublimity in his max- 
ims ! What profound wisdom in his discourses ! 
What presence of mind ! What truth in his replies ! 
Where is the man — where the philosopher — who 
could so live and die, without weakness, and without 
ostentation ? Shall we suppose the evangelic history 
a mere fiction ? Indeed, my friend, it bears not the 
marks of fiction. On the contrary, the history of 
Socrates, which nobody presumes to doubt, is not 
so well attested as that of Jesus Christ. The Jew- 
ish authors were incapable of the diction, and stran- 
gers to the morality contained in the gospels ; the 
marks of whose truth are so striking and invincible, 
that the inventor would be a more astonishing char- 
acter than the hero."* 

* Rousseau's Works, vol. v. p. 215. 



156 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

In every respect the Bible is a wonderful book. 
The impress of divinity is on all its pages ; every 
event is seen by its light linked to God ; its every 
doctrine tends to glorify Him ; and every precept to 
bless His creatures. There is no trace of flattery of 
the reader, nor vanity in the writers ; no anxiety to 
do justice to any fact by coloring it, or to explain any 
circumstance that seems inconsistent. They wrote 
as those that felt they were the amanuenses of God 
— the sworn witnesses to facts. They concealed 
nothing from fear — palliated nothing through shame. 
Human nature, by the lips of the creature, pro- 
claimed the Sufferer on the cross to be the Son of 
God. Infidels, from Julian and Porphyry to Paine 
and Rousseau, have let out admissions that might be 
advantageously collected, that the Bible is the Book 
of God. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY OR INCONSISTENT ? 

Before entering on alleged doctrinal and historical 
objections, I would reply to a statement often ad- 
duced, not so much by the Infidel as by the Roman- 
ist, viz. — That we are not possessed of the whole 
Bible ; that there are certain books, especially some 
connected with the Old Testament, which ought to 
be enrolled in the sacred canon, and which are now 
wanting. These books are commonly called The 
Apociypha. What the Roman Catholic alleges is, 
that we Protestants are really destitute of a complete 
Bible ; a hint on which the Infidel has frequently laid 
hold, in order to show that Christians, even among 
themselves, are not agreed as to what is Scipture and 
what is not. 

There are reasons, the most decisive and satisfac- 
tory, for believing that what is called the Apocrypha 
never was intended to be a part of the sacred volume 
— was not inspired of God — and is justly rejected 
from the sacred canon. This is an important subject, 
for some of the objections which have been adduced 
against the claims of the Scriptures to be the book of 

14 



158 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD 7 

God have been deduced from books which we Pro- 
testants universally disclaim, as any portion of the 
revealed will of God. 

The Apocrypha, so called from a word which 
means Hid — The hidden books — books not read and 
perused publicly in the congregations of Israel — 
was never written in the Hebrew tongue, in which all 
the rest of the Old Testament was written. It was 
never received or admitted by the Jews, to whom were 
divinely entrusted the Oracles of God ; it is not once 
quoted by our Lord, nor by any of the apostles, as a 
portion of the sacred volume. Josephus, the cele- 
brated Jewish historian, who ought to know what 
books were recognized by his countrymen and co-relig- 
ionists, disclaims the Apocrypha as part of the Old 
Testament Scriptures. The Apocrypha was not rec- 
ognized by any of the ancient Christian fathers who 
are looked up to as being valuable historians, how- 
ever imperfect expositors, of Divine truth. I have in 
my possesion the catalogues of the Sacred Scriptures, 
or canon, as recorded by the ancient fathers of the 
Christian church. Athanasius, who lived in the year 
340, rejects the whole of the Apocrypha, except one 
book, which he thinks may be inspired, called the 
Book of Baruch. Hilary, who lived in the year 354, 
rejects all the Apocrypha. Epiphanius, who lived 
in the year 368, rejects it all. The fathers in the 
council of Laodicea, a.d. 367, reject all the Apocry- 
pha. Gregory of Xazianzum, who lived in 370, re- 
jects all. Amphilochius, who lived in 370, also re- 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY? 159 

jects all. Jerome, who lived in 392, rejects it all. 
And lastly, Gregory the Great, who is asserted by 
Romanists to have been the first Pope, and who lived 
in 590, rejects the two books of Maccabees, which 
are at this day received by the Roman Catholic 
church, and in this presents a useful specimen of 
Papal harmony. But we have decisive evidence that 
the Maccabees at least is not part of the Word of 
God, from the simple fact, that the writer disclaims 
all pretension to inspiration whatever. At the end 
of the second book of Maccabees, which is received 
by the Church of Rome as part of the Sacred Scrip- 
tures, it is stated — " So these things being by Nica- 
nor, &c, I also will here make an end of my narra- 
tive, which if I have done well, it is what I desired ; 
but if not so perfectly, it must be pardoned me." 
Can we conceive of an inspired penman begging par- 
don for the mistakes of his narrative ? We find no 
parallel apology in the rest of sacred writ ; and this 
very closing statement of the writer of the books of 
Maccabees, would be sufficient to disprove all claim 
or pretence to inspiration on his part. In the last 
place, the Apocrypha contains doctrines totally de- 
structive of morality. For instance, in the second 
book of Maccabees (xiv. 42,) we read thus — " Now 
as the multitude sought to rush into his house, and 
to break open the door, and to set fire to it, when he 
was ready to be taken he struck himself with his 
sword, choosing to die nobly rather than to fall into 
the hands of the wicked, and to suffer abuses unbe- 



160 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

coming his noble birth." In these words there is a 
distinct eulogium upon suicide ; it is declared, that 
the man who rushed unbidden and unseat into the 
presence of his God. ''died nobly/' To such moral- 
ity as this, we find no parrallel or counterpart in the 
rest of the sacred volume. And in the same second 
book of Maccabees, we read that "it is a holy and 
wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they 
may be loosed from their sins." In other portions 
of the Apocrypha, especially in the book of Tobias, 
which has been received as inspired, it is written 
"that to depart from injustice is to offer & propitia- 
tory sacrifice for injustice, and is the obtaining of 
pardon for sins." These and other doctrines that 
might be quoted from the Apocrypha contradict the 
plain doctrines of Scripture, and show distinctly that 
these books are not to be confounded or identified 
with the sacred volume ; and that, whatever objec- 
tions may lie against the morality of the Apocrypha, 
these do not militate one jot or tittle against the 
morality of what is really the Word of God. 

Some may be disposed to ask — "Does not the 
Church of England receive the Apocrypha ?" That 
church does not receive it as sacred Scripture. She 
expressly states, that parts of the Apocrypha may 
be read only as containing moral lessons, but that no 
doctrine is to be proved thereby : in other words, 
that the Apocrypha is not inspired, though portions 
of it, of which some are good, may be read, just as 
one of her homilies may be read, to the congrega- 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY? 161 

tion. This is decisive as to the opinion of that church 
on the non-inspiration of the Apocryphal books. 
Perhaps, however, it is to be regretted that the 
Apocrypha should be bound up with Holy Scripture 
at all. I have been also told by ministers of the 
Church of England, that when a lesson in the Apoc- 
rypha does occur, they are at perfect liberty to read 
instead of it a portion of inspired and sacred writ. 

Having thus cleared the way so far as to be able 
to see what is the sacred volume, the next statement 
to which I proceed is, that we are charged — and 
charged by two opposite extremes, first by the So- 
cinian, and next by the Roman Catholic — with having 
a false and inaccurate translation of Holy Writ. 

These two systems are both opposed to the truth. 
Socinianism is a system bereft of very much that is 
Divine — -Romanism is a system corrupted by very 
much that is human ; both are equally opposed to 
" the truth as it is in Jesus. " But if we compare 
the translation of the Scriptures made in the year 
1611, that is, our authorized version, with the ver- 
sion of the Socinians, or rather, the mutilated docu- 
ment put forth by them as a version, and on the 
other hand with the Roman Catholic version, we 
shall find, that though our translation might be im- 
proved, w r ere it revised, yet when all the improve- 
ments have been introduced they will only tell more 
triumphantly in favor of the Deity of Christ, the per- 
sonality of the Holy Spirit, and the way of a sinner's 
acceptance freely through the blood and atonement 
14* 



162 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

of the Lord Jesus, To give a specimen of this. In 
the book of Jeremiah (xvii. 9,) we find these words, 
according to our authorized version — " The heart is 
deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked ; 
who can know it?" Both the Socinian and the 
Romanist oppose this translation, and say it is far 
too strong ; and I was quietly told, in a recent con- 
troversy for " the faith once delivered to the saints," 
that we Protestants had wilfully and wickedly mis- 
translated this verse, in order to make out the gloomy 
dogma of Calvinism, called the total corruption of 
human nature. The Roman Catholic version of the 
Scriptures has this translation — " The heart is per- 
verse above all things, and unsearchable ; who can 
know it ?" the expression " unsearchable, " being 
meant to apply to its intellectual, and not to its 
moral condition; and the individual, who called my 
attention to it, said that our translation was wilfully 
corrupted into "desperately wicked," for the mere 
purpose I have just mentioned. Now, in order to 
ascertain which version is correct, I applied to the 
Lexicon of Gesenius — the most distinguished Hebrew 
lexicographer of this or any other age, one also who 
is a Rationalist, or Neologian, and therefore not at 
all biassed in favor of Calvinism. This eminent lexi- 
cographer translates the Hebrew word — " So malig- 
nant as to be incurable." If his translation be right., 
(and he speaks purely as a linguist and a critic, and 
not as a theologian,) our version is hardly strong 
enough; it ought to be — "The heart is deceitful 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY? 163 

above all things, and so malignant as to be utterly- 
incurable by human art." But if we refer to the 
Church of Rome herself, we find her agreeing in our 
translation of this very word, where she does not 
think any dogma of hers is concerned. In this same 
book of Jeremiah, (xv. 18,) there being no theolo- 
gical motive to the contrary, she has translated the 
word as she ought — -" Why is my sorrow become 
perpetual, and my wound desperate so as to refuse to 
be healed?" There she translates the word substan- 
tially the same as we do ; but when she has to deal 
with a doctrinal point, she perverts the word, and in 
order to get rid of the doctrine that man's heart is 
desperately wicked, she softens and explains the 
phrase, so as to make it mean nothing at all. I 
might go over the whole version, and show that when 
we compare our translation with the Roman Catholic 
or the Socinian, we shall find our own, in almost 
every instance, triumphantly correct. Let us take 
another instance from the Gospel of St. John, in the 
Douay version, (ii. 4,) where our Lord, when about 
to transform the water into wine, says to His mother, 
" Woman, what have I to do with thee?" The 
Church of Rome felt this a sort of repulse to the 
homage that she yields to the Virgin Mary, and 
therefore translated it, " What is to Me and to thee ?" 
— which makes nonsense, and cannot be interpreted 
to mean either worship or repulse, or anything at 
all. But in the Gospel of St. Mark (v. V,) the 
Church of Rome translates the very same Greek 



164 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

words, tI ipoi y.al ooi ; " What have I to do with 
thee ?" Where no dogma of her faith is concerned, 
she translates them exactly as we do ; where a dogma 
is concerned, she mistranslates and perverts the 
meaning of God's Word. 

I admit, that our version is susceptible of improve- 
ment ; but of such a nature, that if all the words in 
our translation which might be changed, were trans- 
lated exactly as the original warrants, those great 
truths which are embodied in the standards of the 
Protestant churches, and which are proclaimed from 
every evangelical pulpit, would shine forth in yet 
more glorious and beautiful relief. Let me give 
another instance or two. In St. Paul's Epistle to 
Titus (ii. 13.) we find these words: "Looking for 
that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the 
great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." From 
reading these words, we might suppose the meaning 
to be : " Looking for the glorious appearing of the 
great God" (that is, God the Father,) "and," sec- 
ondly, " of our Saviour Jesus Christ ;" but the literal 
translation of the verse, as any classical scholar well 
knows, is this : " Looking for that blessed hope, and 
the glorious appearing of Jesus Christ, our great 
God and Saviour." Again ; in the Second Epistle 
of Peter (i. 1) we find these words : "Simon Peter, 
a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them 
that have obtained like precious faith with us, through 
the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus 
Christ." From reading these words, one would 



18 THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY ? 165 

likewise suppose allusion to be made to God the 
Father and to God the Son ; but the literal transla- 
tion is : " Through the righteousness of Jesus Christ, 
our God and Saviour." Alon^ with these two 
there are other four passages to which I might refer, 
did space permit — (namely, Eph. v. 5 ; 2 Thess. 
i. 12 ; 1 Tim. v. 21 ; and Jude 4) — in all of which 
we find the very same phraseology mistranslated in 
our version, as if two persons of the Trinity were 
meant ; but when corrected according to exact and 
accurate criticism, we have in these six passages 
most decided and intelligible proof of the essential 
Deity and Godhead of our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ, 

I may show, by reference to two or three speci- 
mens of a different class, what would be the result 
of such alterations of our authorized translation as 
would render it more minutely literal. In the Gos- 
pel of John (i. 14) it is said, that our Lord "was 
made flesh, and dwelt among us." The literal trans- 
lation is, " dwelt as in a tent among us ;" walked and 
lived among us as in a moveable tabernacle, into 
which He had come for a season. Again ; in the 
Gospel of Matthew (ix. 36) we read that our Lord 
" was moved with compassion." The literal transla- 
tion of that is ; " All his bowels were agitated and 
trembled with sympathy and compassion." The 
ancients believed the bowels to be the seat of sym- 
pathy, or mercy. The Greek word used there to 
denote compassion is the most expressive that human 



166 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

language is capable of employing, insomuch that our 
version utterly fails to convey the vastness and ful- 
ness of the meaning of the original. Again ; in the 
Epistle to the Hebrews (iv. 1) our translation is, 
" All things are naked and open unto the eyes of 
Him with whom we have to do." The Greek word 
here is taken from the practices that accompanied 
the offering of animals in sacrifices ; it is said, that 
in ancient nations, when the animal that was to be 
sacrificed had been killed, the priest examined mi- 
croscopically all its entrails and bowels, and watched 
certain spots or symptoms, from which he augured 
success or misfortune in the enterprise in which the 
offerer was embarked ; and therefore the apostle 
says, that all things are as clearly noted by God, as 
the entrails of the victim were laid bare and examined 
by the priest. In the First Epistle to the Corinthians 
(iv. 13) the apostle says, "We are made as the filth 
of the world, and are the offscouring of all things, 
unto this day." The word in the original here is 
amazingly expressive. When a victim was slain for 
sacrifice, all the parts that were not fit to be offered 
on the altar were swept away from the floor of the 
temple, and cast out as pollution, and unfit to remain 
in the temple. Now says the apostle, " We are ex- 
actly like these parts of the sacrifice, which are cut 
off and cast away, and treated as unfit to be either 
dedicated to God, or employed in the service of 
man ; " a most expressive phrase, to denote the utter 
contempt in which the world held the apostles. In 



IB THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY ? 16 7 

the Epistle to the Ephesians, again (v. 27) we read— 
"That He might present it to Himself a glorious 
church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such 
thing, but that it should be holy, and without blem- 
ish." The Greek word there is derived from the 
name of one of the heathen gods, Momus, who was 
supposed to be the god of laughter ; and the apostle's 
assertion is, that we are to be presented so spotless* 
that even the god of laughter and caricature would 
be unable to detect cause of derision or scorn in us, 

Now what is the result of these alterations ? Not 
that the doctrines we preach are impugned, not that 
the theology we hear from every evangelical pulpit 
is affected ; but that the great truths of Christianity 
are brought forth in more brilliant and prominent 
glare. 

Let us now turn our attention to some of the ob- 
jections that have been urged against certain state- 
ments, doctrines, and declarations in the Word of 
God. 

The first which I shall mention, is the curse pro- 
nounced upon the serpent Many infidels have said 
- — "Does it not seem a sort of paltry revenge on the 
part of God? to have cursed the serpent when he pro 
nounced a curse upon guilty and offending man?" 
Why punish the irresponsible ? Now our reply to this 
is : Do we not find the very same fact occur in crea- 
tion and in providence ? The ocean engulfs the mother 
and the helpless babe without distinction. The earth- 
quake overturns churches as well as theatres ; and 



168 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

saints and sinners perish in the catastrophe. The 
objection of the infidel is, that it was unjust in God 
to make the dumb creature suffer in consequence of 
the guilt of man ; but if this be an argument against 
the God of revelation, will it not tell with equal 
strength against the God of creation ? Suppose an 
incendiary sets fire to a stable, and ten or twenty 
horses are destroyed, is not the very same apparent 
injustice suffered to take place in the providence of 
God ? Suppose a war begins between two nations, 
and the noble horse is destroyed in battle ; do we 
not see the brutes there suffering in consequence of 
man's passion and revenge ? Why has not a be- 
nevolent Being so arranged what Infinite Wisdom 
could have arranged, that man's evil passions should 
not go beyond the bosom of the sinner, and that in- 
nocence should be impervious to injury from guilt? 
It is thus that creation, providence, and revelation 
all coincide, and indicate a common parentage. If, 
then, it be an argument against the Bible being a 
revelation from God, that it states the brutes to have 
been sentenced to suffer in consequence of man's 
apostacy, it must be an argument against the crea- 
tion being the work of God, that Ave find animals 
there suffering in consequence of the guilt of man. 

The next objection we refer to is : That certain 
passions are in Scripture ascribed to God ; as, for 
instance, jealousy, hatred, anger, repentance, and 
such like. Now, our reply to this is, that all the 
truths in the Word of God are conveyed, more or 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY? 16& 

less, in figurative language. Heaven is set forth by 
a glorious land, and a beauteous temple ; its access, 
by gates of pearl ; its bliss, by fruits that grow and 
streams that roll, harps of sweet sound, with min- 
strels that play upon them. All this every one un- 
derstands to be figurative language, needful to con- 
vey to man some idea of the exalted glory and felicity 
of that better land. In the same way, God represents 
himself to man under the figures or symbols of hu- 
man passions ; not that man may believe God to be 
like himself, a creature liable to anger and to change, 
but that man may have a clearer conception of God's 
feelings towards sin and holiness, towards injustice 
and crime. Hence, when it is said that God is angry 
with the sinner, it simply denotes that He disap- 
proves, by His very nature, of sin. When it is said 
that God is jealous, it simply denotes that He will 
bear with no rival in His worship, no claimant of 
His glory. When it is said that He repents, it sim- 
ply denotes that He alters the course He formerly 
pursued, not in respect to His purposes, but to our 
perceptions ; we must not blame God's words, but 
our own weakness. Revelation is the infinite within 
the limitations of our humanity. If God had left 
these expressions on record without any explanation, 
there might be some pretence for this objection ; but 
in order to guard against any misconception, we 
read : " My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither 
are your ways My ways, saith the Lord ; for as the 
heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways 
15 



170 18 CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your 
thoughts ;" and again, He has represented Himself 
"the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever/' 
" God is not man, that He should repent." The ob- 
jection, therefore, that God is represented as literally 
possessed of human passions, is at once disposed of. 
Another objection is drawn from the text, wherein 
it is said that God hardened the heart of Pharaoh. 
Infidels say : " Is it reasonable or just, that God 
should condemn that man to everlasting destruction, 
whose heart He Himself hardened ?" Now, we may 
observe here, in the first place, that it has been no- 
ticed more than two hundred years ago, that the 
literal rendering of the phrase in several instances 
may justly be : The Lord permitted, or suffered, 
Pharaoh's heart to be hardened ; the same mood of 
the Hebrew verb which means to cause, signifying 
also to permit. And if it be an objection against 
revelation being the inspiration of God that He per- 
mitted Pharaoh's heart to be hardened, there is the 
same objection against creation being the work of 
God. Does He not suffer men to be born blind ? 
Does He not suffer men to come into the world de- 
formed ? Does He not suffer injuries and casualties 
to destroy hundreds ? You will not say, that this 
proves creation not to be the work of God. In the 
same way, if He suffers the passions of men to work 
their natural evil results, and their hearts to be har- 
dened, it does not prove that the book which re- 
cords such things is not the Word of God. But I 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY? ill 

would not shrink from the strongest view of this 
matter. I take the words as they are in our ver- 
sion: ''The Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart ;" and 
I say, there is nothing in that, inconsistent with the 
attributes of a wise and just and merciful and gra- 
cious God. For all the offers of the Gospel, all the 
motives and opportunities and means that could pos- 
sibly be presented, are presented to the sinner ; and 
if he rejects them all, sins against the clearest light, 
tramples on the kindest love, and nothing more can 
be done for him than has been done, then there are 
remaining just two ways in which that man may be 
punished. Either he may be cut off, and soul and 
body both cast into hell ; or his physical life may be 
spared, while his moral and spiritual life may be ex- 
tinguished. In either case, the punishment is the 
same. Pharaoh, instead of having his heart har- 
dened, might justly have been cut off at that mo- 
ment, and cast out from the presence of God ; but 
instead of this, God suffered his physical existence 
to be protracted, and put an end to his moral and 
spiritual existence, and therefore while on earth he 
was in effect in that place where mercy never comes. 
You would not have objected, if God had cut off 
his natural life, and given him no more means of re- 
pentance, for this is done every day ; then you ought 
not to object to God's cutting off His moral and 
spiritual life, after everything had been done for him 
that could be done. 

The next doctrine objected to, is that contained in 



172 IS CHRISTIAN IT Y 

the words, God " visits the sins of the fathers upon 
the children." Do we not find this illustrated in or- 
dinary life ? A nobleman rebels against his prince ; 
he loses his coronet, and his family suffer for centu- 
ries afterwards. A king commits some great crime ; 
and the whole country is thrown into rebellion and 
war. A father, through gambling, loses all his 
property ; and his children, and his children's chil- 
dren suffer. A parent becomes a drunkard and a 
debauchee, wastes his health and injures his consti- 
tution ; and his offspring are diseased, to the third 
and fourth generation. Now, what is all this, but 
the sins of the fathers visited upon the children in 
the arrangements of a Providence we can see, and in 
the occurrences of daily life? If therefore the 
record of this fact in the Bible, proves the book not 
to be the inspiration of God, then would the happen- 
ing of this fact every day before our eyes prove cre- 
ation and Providence not to be the workmanship of 
God. Moreover, when God states that He visits the 
iniquities of the fathers upon the children, He does 
not refer to their after existence. In Ezekiel 
(xviii. 19) we read: " Yet say ye, Why? doth not 
the son bear the iniquity of the father ? When the 
son hath done that which is lawful and right, and 
hath kept all My statutes, and hath done them, he 
shall surely live. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. 
The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, 
neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son ; 
the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY? 173 

him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon 
him." This chapter refers to the after existence of 
the soul. The Jews construed the statement in Ex- 
odus falsely, and understood it to refer to God's ar- 
rangements in eternity, as well as to His dealings in 
time: but here by the mouth of His prophet He 
distinctly contradicts this ; He shows, that " visiting 
the iniquities of the fathers upon the children" has 
reference purely to man's temporal condition, and 
has no direct bearing whatever on the destinies of 
his immortal soul. 

A passage objected to by infidels as inconsistent 
with the idea of the moral character of God, is in 
Joshua (xii. 7), where we read that God commanded 
all the Canaanitish nations to be extirpated. They 
say, that it seems wholly inconsistent with what we 
should suppose to be the merciful character of God, 
that He should thus command whole nations to be 
destroyed by the sword. But when we hear that 
pestilence has depopulated crowded cities, or that 
Napoleon has swept the continent of Europe, and 
left but the wrecks of smoking homes and the bones 
of slaughtered citizens to be the mementos of his 
march, we do not say that this is a proof that there 
is no God in heaven, nor any moral government of 
the inhabitants of the earth ; and yet, if the destruc- 
tion of the nations of the Canaanites immediately by 
God is a proof that the Bible which records it is not 
the inspiration of God, then the destruction of na- 
tions by the sword of the conquerer or by the breath 
15* 



174 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

of pestilence must be a proof that there is no God, 
or that creation is not the work of God, nor prov- 
idence a part of the general government of God. 
When we see juries in our own country bringing in 
a verdict of Guilty, the judge pronouncing sentence 
of death, and that sentence executed, we do not 
complain that there is anything wrong or unjust in 
the act. Now these Canaanites are declared and 
proved to have polluted and stained the land with 
abominable crimes : they had time and were urged 
to repent of them, and thus escape destruction ; and 
when they were cut off by the sword of Heaven, it 
was merely the holy Judge pronouncing sentence on 
flagrant criminals, and the righteous Governor ex- 
ecuting that sentence to the letter. We are not to 
regard the extirpation of the Canaanites as an act 
of arbitrary or private revenge, but as the execution 
of the sentence of retributive justice, and such as 
had perhaps as great mercy to the innocent as equity 
to the guilty. 

It is urged, that the command given to Abraham 
to sacrifice his son Isaac, is altogether inconsistent with 
all right conceptions of the justice and the mercy of 
God. First, the apparently intended act was sym- 
bolical ; it was meant to represent the sacrifice of 
Christ, the Son of God, as a propitiation for the sins 
of the world. In the second place, God has a sov- 
ereign and indisputable claim to the life of His 
creature, when, where, and how He pleases ; so much 
so, that if Abraham had actually plunged the knife 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY? 175 

into the bosom of Isaac at the command of God, it 
would have been right in Abraham, and just in God. 
He has a right to summon the soul to His presence 
through any avenue, in any circumstances, and by 
any instrumentality that to Him may seem meet. 
In the last place, Abraham did not kill Isaac, and 
this alone extinguishes all objections. 

In the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy, and in 
some parts of Ezekiel, there are passages, it is alleged, 
so indelicate, as to be unfit for general perusal ; and 
Paine, and Voltaire, and Hume, and Romanists also, 
have urged this as a reason for disbelieving the 
Bible to be the inspiration of God. In the first 
place, we have no fact recorded in Scripture which 
does not actually occur in creation and in providence ; 
and if therefore the record of that which to us seems 
indelicate is an argument that God did not write the 
Book, then the actual occurrence in creation and in 
providence of these same indelicacies must be an 
argument that God did not create the world, and 
that he does not rule it by his providence. In 
courts of justice, and in professional and medical 
communications, circumstances transpire which may 
seem indelicate to us, but of which we never com- 
plain, because we know that such communications 
are essential to the good and well-being of mankind ; 
and may not these communications of the great Phy- 
sician and the moral Restorer of the world, notwith- 
standing their apparent indelicacy, be essential for 
the moral restoration of the world ? The Scripture 



176 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

is an exact portrait of man ; if it shows the bright in 
his character, it also records the black; if it pro- 
claims that which ennobles and exalts him, it dis- 
closes that which tends to depress and humble him. 
This Book would not be, as it professes to be, a full 
length portraiture, not merely of man's restoration, 
but of man's ruin, and wretchedness, and guilt, if it 
did not record fully and fairly the sins, as well as the 
virtues, of human kind. There is also, in the present 
day, what is thought delicacy of language, which 
was unknown, even two or three centuries ago, and 
still more so in the day when the Bible was written. 
In ancient times, and especially in Eastern countries, 
men and women never mingled together in society, 
but kept perfectly distinct and separate ; and allu- 
sions might be made, in such circumstances, by no 
means indelicate. In a recent work, written, I be- 
lieve, by an Arab, it is stated as a most revolting 
circumstance, that in England the ladies walk the 
streets without being veiled, and openly mingle with 
men in society and in the churches. For this, the 
foreigner charges us with a want of delicacy, just as 
we charge something else as indelicate against a past 
generation. But the question may well be mooted, 
whether there was not more real delicacy in days 
when these very expressions were employed, than 
there is in the age in which we live, with all its sup- 
posed perfection and fastidious refinement. There 
is here also a distinction worth recollection. When 
we read of that which is immoral and indelicate in 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY? 177 

the novel or romance, it is recorded in such a way 
as to excite corresponding emotions in the mind of 
the reader ; but when we read what are called the 
most indelicate records in the Word of God, they 
are recorded in tones of holy and righteous severity, 
and instead of being calculated to excite one unhal- 
lowed emotion, they are calculated to make us abhor, 
and abstain from what is foul, and love whatsoever 
is just, and pure, and of good report. And for all 
these reasons we say, that those parts of Holy Writ 
which appear to us indelicate may be vindicated on 
the strictest principles, and shown to be neither in- 
consistent with the moral character of God, nor cal- 
culated to contaminate the feelings and affections of 
mankind. 

Polygamy, it is objected, tvas suffered to exist 
among the Hebrews and in other Eastern nations; 
we read of the number of wives of David, and of the 
concubines of Solomon ; and the infidel immediately 
starts the objection — Can this have been permitted 
by the same God who again and again forbids it? 
Now, the laws which may be suited to one age of 
the world may not be suited to another age ; the 
laws which may be most essential in one stage of 
the world's history may be the reverse in another 
stage. Our Lord gives the reason of the change. 
Polygamy was suffered " because of the hardness of 
the people's hearts ;" it was a practice tolerated in 
the circumstances of the age, admitted to be a cor- 
ruption of the primeval law, not a perpetual moral 



178 13 CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

maxim Intended to regulate the intercourse and con- 
duct of mankind in after times. Is it not the fact, 
that there are different laws, not only for different 
ages, but for different states of the same community ? 
The same laws w^ould not do for the prison which 
are required for upright and polished men ; the same 
laws do not prevail in a penal colony that are in 
force in the free mother country ; the same laws will 
not do for Otaheite that are proper for Britain. 
There exists in the usages of men a certain accom- 
modation of the laws to the country they are intended 
to regulate. We have something like this illustrated 
in the present day, in the conduct, for instance, of 
medical men. Suppose a person is seized with a 
dangerous disease, and is placed under a physician ; 
suppose he is a person who has been accustomed to 
drink a considerable quantity of alcohol every day ; 
the physician, though he will reprehend the use of 
alcohol, will allow that person a certain quantity of 
it every day, and will decrease it gradually, until the 
patient is able to abstain from it wholly. Now it 
may have been, that God allowed, in the circum- 
stances of other times, the gradual diminution of a 
practice, which now, when " life and immortality are 
brought to light, " is utterly interdicted. Polygamy, 
too, like many other things, is not sinful except by 
the interdict of God. Without God's law upon the 
subject, there is no more guilt in polygamy, than 
there would be in violating the seventh day while 
God had not commanded it to be kept holy ; it is 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY? 179 

His command that makes it sinful. Polygamy is not 
essentially sinful, like murder or theft ; but is now 
become sinful, because the command of God forbids 
it. Cain, in the infancy of the world, married his 
sister, and it was not then sinful ; but now it would 
be most sinful. So that there must be some adap- 
tation between the age and condition of the individ- 
uals and the laws employed to govern and restrain 
them. 

It has been contended, contradictory as it may 
appear to the former objection, that the morality of 
the New Testament is too strict and severe. The 
young man, for instance, says — " It cannot be sin for 
me to gratify the passions and propensities of my 
nature ; I am constituted so, and God has made me 
so, and surely it cannot be sin in me to do what God 
has made me disposed to ?" Now we shall find, that 
the brother, who will plead for the gratification of 
certain passions in himself, will reprobate the indul- 
gence of those passions in a sister or some one near 
and dear to him ; this very circumstance shows that 
there is in such a one's heart, if his lusts and passions 
would allow it to be felt, a conviction that he is act- 
ing contrary to the will of God, and inconsistently 
with the welfare of society. The lofty holiness re- 
quired in the gospel, is merely the highest happiness 
required in man. The highest morality is the highest 
joy. God did not constitute man necessarily a sin- 
ner. The whole guilt and responsibility are ours if 
we sin, while all the glory must be God's if we are 



180 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

reclaimed from the practice of vice to the practice of 
virtue and piety. 

It is said that the murder ofJephiha's daughter by 
Jephthah seems inconsistent with the views we form 
of the mercy and justice of God. If we peruse the 
chapter in which this is recorded (Judges xi.), we 
shall come to the conclusion that Jephthah did not 
destroy his daughter, and that the common and popu- 
lar impression is wholly unwarranted by the sacred 
narrative. It is stated, first of all, that Jephthah 
promised, that the first thing that met him, if he re- 
turned victorious and in peace, " should surely be 
the Lord's, and he would offer it up for a burnt- 
offering." Now, if we refer to the marginal reading 
(which is generally the most correct), we shall find 
it run — " It shall surely be the Lord's, or I will offer 
up a burnt -offering ;" in the original there is no word 
for " it 9 -' ("I will offer it up"), but the literal reading 
is — " Whatsoever cometh forth of the door of my 
house to meet me, shall surely be the Lord's or" (if 
I do not devote that object to Him) " I will offer up 
a burnt offering." In the next place, Jephthah the 
father was not at liberty to kill his daughter by any 
law ; much less on any vow made in haste. Human 
sacrifices were interdicted under all circumstances. 
And further ; in order to offer up a sacrifice, there 
mast have been a priest to do it ; Jephthah was not 
a priest, he was a soldier, and no priest of the tribe 
of Aaron dare offer up a human victim in sacrifice to 
God. In the next place, it is stated in the thirty- 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY? 181 

eighth verse, that " She went with her companions 
for two months, and bewailed her virginity upon the 
mountains." She was secluded and separated from 
the world, and devoted to a sort of monastic life. If 
she had been slain by her fatner and offered up as a 
sacrifice or burnt- offering, how could this have been 
recorded ? And in the last verses it is said, that 
" her father did with her according to Ms vow" (not 
"he slaughtered her"), "and she knew no man ; and 
it was a custom in Israel, that the daughters of Israel 
went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah four 
days in a year." The literal rendering of that last 
expression, is, that " the daughters of Israel went 
yearly to lament with the daughter of Jephthah ;" 
any one who will refer to the original, will see that 
the preposition " with" is there. If we take all these 
circumstances into consideration, it will appear that 
the objection, that Jephthah, with the command or 
permission of God, sacrificed his own daughter as a 
burnt-offering, falls to the ground, because no such 
thing occurred, and all that did happen was, that 
she was devoted to the immediate service and wor- 
ship of God in a state of perpetual virginity. 

Another passage objected to as inconsistent with 
the character of God, is found in the second of 
Samuel (xii. 31) where it is said of David, when he 
had taken the city of Rabbah — n - And he brought 
forth the people that were therein, and put them 
under saws, and under harrows of iron, and under 
axes of iron, and made them pass through the brick- 
16 



182 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

kiln : and thus did he unto all the cities of the chil- 
dren of Amnion. So David and all the people re- 
turned unto Jerusalem." This is recorded in another 
passage of sacred writ in still ampler and stronger 
terms ; and Paine, especially, has boasted and said 
— " Is this the inspiration of God ? was David act- 
ing according to the suggestions of Him, who is sup- 
posed to be wise and merciful, when he thus tor- 
tured and destroyed hundreds of human beings ?" 
Now some will be surprised when I inform them, 
that the Hebrew word betk, which is here translated 
"under," does not mean under, (that is, placed be- 
neath,) but means to (in the sense in which we say, 
in ordinary language, "I put him to the plough"); 
the literal meaning is, that he put them to saws and 
to harrows and to axes and to the making of bricks 
— that he made them perpetual working slaves. 
There is no warrant whatever for the construction 
that he destroved them by saws and harrows and 
axes, or inhumanly forcing them into the furnace of 
the brick-kiln. He simply sets them to a laborious 
drudgery. 

Another passage adduced as a disproof of Chris- 
tianity being from God, is the statement that some 
"little children" mocked Elisha, and said to him, 
"Go up, thou bald-head," and that for this, forty- 
two of them were instantly, by the command of God, 
torn to pieces by bears that came forth from the ivood. 
"Now the Hebrew word, here translated "little chil- 
dren," is in various parts of the Word of God, trans- 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY? 183 

lated "young men." Isaac, at the age of twenty, 
is called by this very Hebrew noun. Joseph, at the 
age of thirty, is called by the same word — a young 
man. The real rendering of the passage therefore 
is, that forty-two young men (who may have been 
twenty or thirty years of age) came forth from the 
city of Bethel, which had been devoted to the wor- 
ship of an idol, and blasphemed the living God, and 
mocked His prophet ; and in just judgment for their 
conduct, the bears, the executioners simply, came 
forth, at the bidding of the Most High, from the 
forest, and destroyed them. 

The next objection which I notice, against the 
Scriptures being the inspiration of God, rests on what 
are called its curses ; those, for instance, recorded in 
the fifty-fifth Psalm, and in the book of Deuteronomy 
— " Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed 
shalt thou be in the field ; cursed shall be thy bas- 
ket and thy store ; cursed shall be the fruit of thy 
body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy 
kine, and the Mocks of thy sheep ; cursed shalt thou 
be when thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be 
when thou goest out." Now, in reply to this, I ob- 
serve, that the future tense and the imperative mood 
of the Hebrew verb are in certain persons precisely 
the same, and that it was entirely in the option of 
our translators to render every one of these passages 
"Thou wilt" or " Thou shalt," as '" Shalt thou be" 
or " Be thou." And since this liberty was left us, 
it might seem more consistent with the character of 



184 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

God, that these passages should be rendered, " Thou 
wilt be cursed ;" and in the fifty-fifth Psalm, " Death 
will seize upon them, and they will go down quick 
into hell." Generally, wherever the expression is 
put in the imperative mood, it might be rendered in 
the future tense ; and thereby made a prediction of 
what will surely betide the sinner, and not an impre- 
cation of what is deserved. But suppose that these 
passages are rightly rendered in the imperative mood, 
and not in the future tense, I do not hesitate to de- 
fend them ; still they do not militate against the 
character of God. God has a right to send forth 
His servants as judges, to pronounce His sentence 
upon those that rebel against Him and disobey His 
laws. And bear in mind, that when Moses or David 
used these imprecations (if we call them so), they 
did so, not as private individuals, gratifying personal 
feelings, but as judges acting by the authority and 
clothed with the commission of their Lord and Mas- 
ter in heaven. 

The next objection adduced against Scripture, to 
which I shall refer, is everlasting punishment. The 
infidel says, it seems totally inconsistent with the 
mercy and the goodness of God, that His creatures 
should be doomed to everlasting suffering, and that 
a punishment should be inflicted so disproportionate 
to the sins of which they have been guilty. I do 
not agree with those who have tried to explain away 
this awful truth ; they seem to me to torture scrip- 
ture. But if I can show, that there are punishments 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY? 185 

even in this world which seem in their measure dis- 
proportionate to the offence, it will not do to plead 
against the revelation of God because there is a pun- 
ishment declared in it which seems to us dispropor- 
tionate to the offence. Now suppose a man com- 
mits one single sin ; how often is it found, that he 
incurs a lifetime of shame, and suffering, and sor- 
row ! Does it not seem a punishment totally dis- 
proportionate to the offence of which he has been 
guilty, that through a whole life he should suffer 
shame and sorrow for one single violation of the laws 
of his country, or the rescripts of his God ? And 
again, in the world in which we live, we can show 
even now, the infliction of a perpetual punishment. 
We find that some are suffering punishment every 
week, every day, every hour, every moment ; and 
though it be in different individuals, yet that a large 
portion of the race as a whole is undergoing per- 
petual punitive treatment. And therefore it may 
not be inconsistent with the character of God, that 
the individual, who has broken His laws and rebelled 
against His offers of mercy, should be consigned to 
a place where mercy is no longer offered. But do 
we object to everlasting happiness ? The infidel 
speaks of desert ; he thinks moral conduct is entitled 
to reward, and immoral conduct deserves punish- 
ment, and he admits that everlasting happiness may 
justly be conferred on what is pleasing to God and 
commendable. Then why should he object to ever- 
lasting punishment being decreed for immoral con- 



186 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

duct, that is displeasing to God and blameworthy ? 
But I add, the punishment of the lost is of that kind, 
that it must be perpetual by the very necessity of 
the thing. What is hell ? It is not a place of literal 
flames and literal fire ; I need not tell you, that 
the language employed is symbolical and figurative. 
Hell is moral aberration from God, just as heaven is 
moral approximation to God ; at every step the lost 
recede from God their horror and remorse and mis- 
ery must be augmented, and the possibility of return 
diminished, just as at every step the saint approxi- 
mates to God his joy and peace and happiness must 
be increased. And therefore the sentence pronounced 
upon the ungodly is merely— " He that is unjust, let 
him be unjust still; and he which is filthy, let him 
be filthy still :" and the sentence pronounced upon 
the righteous is just — " He that is righteous, let him 
be righteous still ; and he that is holy, let him be 
holy still." Hell is just the impress of a centrifugal 
power on man's soul, that carries him further and 
further from God and from happiness ; and Heaven 
is a centripetal power imparted to man's soul, that 
draws him nearer and nearer to God and to joy. 
The one begins with " depart," the other with 
"come." And therefore, from the very nature of 
the thing, and from parity of reasoning upon eternal 
blessedness, eternal punishment does not seem at all 
inconsistent with the character of God, or contrary 
to what we should believe to be His dealings here- 
after. 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY? 18? 

Such are some of the objections urged against the 
Word of God. When fairly examined, they do not 
tell in favor of infidelity ; but the contrary. May 
the Spirit of God bring home His truth to our hearts 
and consciences ; and convince us, that though there 
are in the Word of God " some things hard to be 
understood," it is only " they that are unlearned 
and unstable" who " wrest them to their own de- 
struction." 



CHAPTER IX. 

13 THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY AND INCONSISTENT? 

One of the first objections which have been ad- 
duced against the statements of the Word of God, 
is, that the whole story of Paradise lost, with its 
happy pair, its tree of life and its tree of knowledge, 
is a tale altogether unworthy of God. Row if there 
were another account of the origin of evil of a more 
philosophic character, if there were any other tale or 
story that could be substantiated, or that bore upon 
its face the impress of a purer and a nobler author, 
then indeed we might peradventure reject the sacred 
narrative. But when we turn to the stones recorded 
in the heathen poets, in Hesiod and Virgil and Ovid 
and Lucretius — when we read of their golden age, 
of the golden apple and the Hesperides, of the re- 
sults of Pandora's box and Prometheus' theft, and 
kindred tales — we see at once the anile and puerile 
statements of a wild and exuberant imagination, but 
yet at the same time they are confirmatory of the 
inspired record, by their being evidently taken from 
it ; and if we proceed to compare the simple and noble 
narrative of Genesis with the fancies and figments of 



18 THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY ? 189 

the poets, we are constrained to acknowledge that 
the first is the truth, bearing upon its brow the im- 
primatur of God, and the last the fables of drivelling 
ignorance. 

But it is further objected, that the subjecting of our 
first parents to a test, by observance of which they 
should stand, and by disobedience to which they 
should fall, seems to have been an unnecessary and 
uncalled-for obligation imposed on them by God. 
It was not so. Man was by his very being a crea- 
ture, and God the Creator. It was essentially nec- 
essary, therefore, that the creature should be placed 
under law ; that there should be in the creature, 
and about the creature, the traces of a creature's 
origin, and of a creature's dependence and allegiance 
to his Maker. Every orb and intelligence must stand 
thus. Now what could be more simple, or more 
just, simple, or easy to be observed, than the ar- 
rangement of Eden ; as if God, by it, proclaimed — 
" In order to show that thou, Adam, art a creature, 
and in duty bound to recognize and obey Me, thy 
Creator, I lay upon thy shoulder no harder burden 
than this, that thou mayest eat of every fruit-tree 
that waves its branches in broad and beauteous 
Eden, save only of one single tree, of which thou 
mayest not eat ; for if thou dost eat, death, with all 
its woe, must follow as the necessary consequence?" 
If the temptation had been great to eat of this tree, 
one might have said that Adam was placed in trying 
circumstances ; but when the temptation to eat was 



190 19 CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

the least possible, and when the punishment, in case 
of eating, was the greatest possible, we can see in 
these the arrangement and the requirements of 
heavenly order, the love of God, and the inexcusable 
heinousness of the guilt that was involved in that 
crime, when Adam took of the forbidden tree, and — 

" Brought death into the world, and all our woe." 

But were we to reject the Mosaic account of the 
introduction of evil, we do not get rid of the difficulty. 
We see sin and suffering naked and grim in the 
world. How do you reconcile the existence of these, 
and the existence of a benevolent God? What 
better solution than that of Christianity can you 
give ? I therefore assert, that whether we compare 
the record of Moses with the legendary fables of the 
heathen poets, or with the ablest and brightest con- 
jectures of mind or suggestions of philosophy, or 
whether we analyze and examine all the circum- 
stances of the case, we shall be constrained to ac- 
knowledge that the whole thing was worthy of God, 
and that in making this arrangement God not only 
acted mercifully, but justly, wisely, and well. 

The Mosaic record is wholly disbelieved by some. 
Its credibility must rest on evidence. To confirm its 
antiquity and truth in its merely historical aspect, I 
would refer to the division of time, which prevails in 
almost every country in the world ; a division trace- 
able to the books of Moses. For instance ; the 
division of the year into 365 days and a fraction is 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY? 191 

the natural result of observing the earth's motion 
about the sun ; the division of time into months is a 
very natural consequence of observing the phases of 
the moon ; and the division of time into day and 
night is obviously forced on us. But how can we 
account for the fact, that in Europe, in Asia, in 
Africa, and in America, time is divided into periods 
of seven days, commonly called weeks ? No physical 
observation will account for this. No inference from 
sun, moon, or stars, will account for it. Obviously, 
therefore, the only conclusion we can arrive at is, 
that it was either a tradition handed down from the 
first fathers of the human race, and preserved among 
them, though scattered to the utmost bounds of the 
habitable globe, or that it was directly copied from 
the writings of Moses, and incorporated in the laws 
and habits of the nations. So tied, moreover, does 
man seem to be to this division of time into seven 
days, or weeks, that when French philosophy, in its 
frenzy and infatuation, tried to abolish it, and instead 
of weeks to establish decades, the whole nation 
soon revolted against the change, and returned, as 
from some mysterious instinct, to the old division 
into seven days, or weeks, as they now observe it. 

Another proof of the antiquity of the Mosaic 
record, is found in the language of almost every 
country in the world. Words such as Adam and 
Eve, all indicate the Hebrew to have been the lan- 
guage of Eden. Every one acquainted with the 
Hebrew tongue, and with the Greek and Latin and 



192 18 CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

modem languages, will see that most of them can 
more or less plainly be traced back to the Hebrew. 
The very letters of the Hebrew alphabet — aleph, 
beth, gimel, daleth, &c, are exactly parallel with the 
Greek — alpha, beta, gamma, delta, &c. ; and if we 
refer to the English alphabet, or the Italian, French, 
Spanish, German, we find nearly the same forms 
given to the letters, and almost the same sounds, and 
all corresponding strikingly with the Hebrew ; while 
in the Welsh, the Gaelic, and the Celtic, we find 
many words plainly of Hebrew origin. What does 
this prove, but that languages look backward to the 
first, the Hebrew ; that the language of every nation 
owns the East as its parent ? In one word, the 
languages of the earth are vocal with attestations to 
the truth of the Mosaic record. And so the struc- 
ture of language, as well as the epochs of chronology, 
proclaims in impressive accents — " God's word is 
Truth." 

Some philosophers have tried to prove, from cer- 
tain Hindoo and Chinese calculations of eclipses, 
that the earth is very much older than the Mosaic 
record represents it to be. The Chinese have one 
table, in which they calculate eclipses that happened 
many thousand years before the earth was created, 
according to the Mosaic history. But the celebrated 
La Place, has demonstrated, that these tables of the 
Chinese are downright forgeries, and that not a sin- 
gle particle of dependence is to be placed upon them. 

The same celebrated astronomer has demonstrated 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY ? 193 

a most important fact. The earth moves round the 
sun in an oval line ; and a line passing from one end 
of that oval to the other, is called, in astronomical 
language, the line of the Apsides, Now it has been 
found, that this line rises at a certain angle from 
what is called the line of the equinoxes, and pro- 
ceeds in its own direction in a given ratio so accurate 
and constant, that in twenty-five thousand years it 
would perform a perfect revolution, and meet the 
equinox again. But La Place, having demonstrated 
that this line proceeds a certain distance in a given 
time, has calculated the procession of this line from 
the line of the equinoxes, and found it to amount to 
such a number of degrees, as proves that it has been 
proceeding about 5,800 years ; exactly agreeing with 
the account found in the Mosaic record in the Word 
of God. 

There is another proof of the recency of the 
earth's formation that has been suggested. It is 
ascertained, that by the action of the winds, rains, 
and frosts, every mountain is undergoing a gradual 
decomposition ; so that Ben Lomond and Ben Nevis 
are so many feet lower than they were two or three 
thousand years ago, and if they had been in exist- 
ence ten or twenty thousand years, these mountains, 
it is thought, would have become levelled, and the 
whole earth would have been now a plain spheroid. 
Now the very fact, that the mountains are not yet 
levelled, and the valleys are not yet filled up with 
the debris proceeding from them, some think a proof 
11 



194 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

that the world is not eternal, and is probably but 
about the age the Mosaic record announces it to be. 
Another infidel objection is, that the language and 
ideas of the books of Moses are inconsistent with the 
discoveries of modern science. For instance : Moses 
states that the light was created and shone upon the 
world prior to the fourth day, on which the sun and 
moon were created ; and infidel philosophers ask, 
How can we find light without the sun ? Our reply 
is this ; it is true, we cannot now find day-light with- 
out the sun having risen to disseminate that light, 
but this does not prove that light may not have ex- 
isted before the fourth day of creation without the 
sun to disseminate it. We have a parallel case in 
the waters. It is recorded, that the earth and the 
water were so intimately mingled together, that they 
formed one vast chaos, and God separated the earth 
from the water, and made the ocean to be that great 
reservoir which sends its waters throughout the ar- 
teries, veins, and fountains of the earth. In the 
same manner He collected the parts of light into the 
sun, and made it to be the source whence that light 
should be shed forth over the globe. We read, 
" God made* two great lights/' but the literal trans- 
lation is, He " made two great light-bearers" The 
sun and the moon may have existed millions of years 
before this. What God did upon the fourth day, 
was to consolidate the scattered rays of light in that 
body called the sun, and to make him to be the great 
and glorious luminary to light the world that rolls 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY ? 195 

around him, and on which we dwell. So that the 
language of Moses, we observe, is the language of 
the Newtonian philosopher, when he says, not that 
the sun and moon were created at that time, but 
that they were then made to sustain a relationship 
to the world, which they had not sustained before, 
that of lighting it by their rays. 

Another objection to the Mosaic record, urged 
with apparent triumph, is, that the human race is 
plainly not sprung from one common parent. The 
infidel craniologist — though all craniologists are not 
infidels — the infidel craniologist will show you the 
shape of the head of a European, of an African, of 
an Asiatic, of an American ; he will show you the 
colors of their skins — the white, the jet black, and 
the copper colored ; and he will insist on the infer- 
ence that they are not all sprung from one common 
parent. Now our reply to this is to be found in the 
pages of Buffon, who was a man not disposed to fa- 
vor or help Christianity, who affirms that man, though 
white in Europe, yellow in Asia, and black in Africa, 
yet is one race, and must evidently have come from 
the same original. One fact will demonstrate the 
truth of this. At this moment on the coast of India 
there is found a colony of Jews, who were originally 
of a comparatively fair complexion, and who of course 
have not been permitted to intermarry with others 
of a different race, and yet they are now as black as 
the inhabitants of Guinea, or the swarthy sons of 
Africa ; a demonstration that climate, and sun, and 



196 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

food, are sufficient to account for diversities of color 
in the human race. The darkness of the complexion 
too is directly the effect of climate. In Guinea man 
is jet black ; in Abyssinia, less hot, he is less dark; 
in Asia he is still less so ; and in Europe he is white. 
It is monstrous to deprecate the African as a lower 
race. Some of the noblest men that have shed the 
triumphs of their genius upon the world in which we 
live were black as the blackest slaves of Africa. 
Hannibal, the Wellington of ancient days, the man 
that shook Rome with his name, was black, probably 
as the blackest slave at this moment toiling in the 
West Indies. 

Another objection urged by the infidel has been, 
that the Mosaic record cannot be true, because it does 
not account for the peopling of America. America 
was unknown, they say, till Columbus discovered it, 
and therefore cannot have been peopled from the 
same common parent with Asia, Europe, and Africa. 
Now this has been admirably settled by the voyages 
of Captain Cook. He has shown, that the coast of 
Tartary on the Asiatic side, and the coast of America 
on the opposite side, indicate, like the cliffs of Dover 
and Calais, that they were originally one continent, 
that they are separated only by a very narrow sea, 
and that between these two continents there are two 
islands, from either of which we may see either vast 
continent. It may be seen, too, that the geological 
phenomena presented on the Asiatic side and on the 
American side are precisely similar : it is on record 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY ? 197 

that natives of the Society Isles have been drifted in 
their boats six hundred miles from their home ; and 
therefore the presumption is strong that the inhabi- 
tants of Asia sailed to America, and that by them 
aboriginal America was peopled with its teeming 
thousands. It has been shown, also, that the waters 
of the intervening sea are frequently frozen over in 
the winter ; and therefore, without the use of boats 
at all, we can account for the peopling of America. 
The inhabitants of the new world are, in short, the 
children and grandchildren of the inhabitants of the 
old. 

One fact that I would here adduce, is in no slight 
degree demonstrative of the truth of the Mosaic 
record ; it is, the remnant of that supremacy which 
Moses states to have been originally bestowed on 
man, still possessed by him wherever we find him. 
All animals — the mole, or the owl, or the lamb — ex- 
ert their strength and develop their peculiarities, 
simply to supply themselves with food and to per- 
petuate their species. But not so with man; we 
find him mastering the energies of brutes, and subdu- 
ing them to his will ; bringing the elements of steam, 
and of water, and of fire, to subserve his interests, 
manufacture and carry his goods, and execute his 
designs ; and in the shepherd or in the king, in the 
mechanic or in the merchant, in the sailor or in the 
soldier, developing bright and still surviving evidences 
of his primeval lordship. Even in ruins he main- 
tains a fragment of the sceptre of the lord of the 
17* 



198 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOB ? 

world, with the investiture of which he was formed. 
This fact is a strong confirmation of the Mosaic rec- 
ord, which, says that man was made to have domin- 
ion over the creatures. 

Infidels object to the longevity of the antediluvian 
patriarchs. They classify this statement with the 
fabulous legends of Greece and of Rome ; and they 
say, that all present experience proves it absurd to 
imagine that there was a race of men who lived nine 
hundred or a thousand years. The ancient heathen, 
Greeks and Latins, record the tradition, that men 
before the flood, with which they connect the name 
of Deucalion, lived to a much more protracted age 
than at present ; thus indicating the remains of a 
truth borrowed from the Jews. There is also a rea- 
son for it. Longevity was necessary to perpetuate 
and maintain revelation in the world ; there being 
no written revelation, it was necessary that the living 
witnesses of the word spoken by God should have 
many years added to their biography. Hence Adam, 
Methuselah, and Noah, were three links, that out- 
lasted two thousand years : Methuselah spake with 
Adam, and heard from him the story of his fall and 
restoration ; and Noah conversed with Methuselah, 
and received from him the narrative which he had 
received from Adam. The longevity of the antedi- 
luvians was thus necessary to maintain the purity 
and perpetuate the progress of Divine truth in the 
world. There is nothing to disprove it ; it rests on 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY? 199 

the credibility of the record, while it is also reason- 
able to expect it to have been so. 

The next objection is made to the occurrence of 
what in the Mosaic record is called the Flood. Infi- 
dels say, that there is no satisfactoiy evidence what- 
ever that such a catastrophe befell our world. But 
we find scientific men, without reference to revela- 
tion, bringing out results that substantiate the truth 
of the Bible. For instance : one very celebrated 
physiologist has shown that our earth must within 
five thousand years have been subjected to some 
dreadful and disturbing catastrophe, the evidence of 
which is to be found in all nations. On the tops of 
the Alps and the Appenines we find marine shells, 
skeletons of fishes, and of creatures whose native 
element is the ocean. How were they brought to 
that lofty summit ? If we go into some inland dis- 
tricts of England, we shall find marine shells upon 
the chalk cliffs by hundreds and thousands ; they 
stare the infidel in the face as he rides by them, and 
tell him that God's Word is true. We find the deer, 
which is a native of America, buried in Ireland ; the 
elephant of India, a native of the torrid zone, in parts 
of Germany ; skeletons of whales in various parts of 
England ; bones of extinct races in the Cordilleras, 
7,000 feet high. How came these creatures from 
the very ends of the earth, to be located in soils so 
distant from their native and congenial homes ? How 
were they raised to such heights ? The answer is 
probable, reasonable, and true, that they were de- 



200 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

posited there by a great flood that overflowed the 
world ; and they now remain, dumb, but expressive 
monuments that God's Word is true. There is also 
evidence in the state of the earth of a disruptive tor- 
rent having rolled from the south. 

Infidels have objected to the account of the ark, 
and have asserted that it is quite absurd to suppose 
that ever there could be a vessel constructed large 
enough to hold all the creatures that must have been 
placed in it, together with sufficient food (it may be, 
for six or twelve months) — water for the fishes, corn 
for the four-footed animals, seeds for the birds, and 
so on. Now we will take the dimensions of the ark 
from the record of Moses, and calculate them on the 
lowest possible scale. There are two definitions 
given of a cubit — one that it is eighteen inches, or a 
foot and a half, the other that it is one foot and eight 
inches ; we will take it only at the lowest. Moses 
states that the ark was 300 cubits long ; this would 
make it 450 feet long, or about the length of St. 
Paul's Cathedral. The breadth of it he states to be 
50 cubits; we have it then 1o feet in breadth. He 
states it to be 30 cubits high ; so that it was 45 feet 
in height. In other words, it was as long as St. Paul's 
Cathedral, nearly as broad, and about half as high. 
The tonnage of the ark, according to the calculation 
of modern carpenters, must have been about 32,000 
tons. The largest ship of war — the St. Vincent, for 
instance, which is of a size altogether unimaginable 
to those who have never seen it — is 2,500 tons bur- 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY ? 201 

den ; so that the ark must have been equal to seven- 
teen first-rate ships of war ; and if armed as such 
ships are, it would have contained much beyond 
18,000 men, and provisions for them for eighteen 
months. Now Buffon has stated, that all the four- 
footed animals may be reduced to 250 pairs, and the 
birds to a still smaller number. On calculation, 
therefore, we shall find, that the ark would have held 
more than five times the necessary number of crea- 
tures, and more than five times the required quantity 
of food to maintain them for twelve months. Fair 
and indisputable arithmetic adds its testimony to in- 
spiration, and proves that God's Word is true. 

Another objection adduced against the truth of the 
sacred narrative, is found in the statements put forth 
by infidels respecting the rainbow. Our translation 
states, that when Noah stepped forth from the ark, 
God said, " I do set My bow in the cloud," as a 
symbol that the waters of^the ocean shall never 
again overflow so as to depopulate the globe. Now 
the literal rendering is, "I do appoint My bow in 
the cloud ;" and the very expression shows that the 
rainbow must have existed prior to the flood, though 
it was subsequent to the flood that it became a sym- 
bol or sacramental sign, to denote that the world 
should never again be overflowed. If there were 
rain-drops and sun-beams before the flood, there 
must have been rainbows ; because the rainbow is 
produced by the refraction of the rays of light from 
the drops of water which fall in a shower. But the 
18 



202 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

Bible does not assert that God created the rainbow 
immediately after the flood, but that He then applied 
it to this special use, just as He applied the twelve 
stones set up after the children of Israel had crossed 
the Jordan, as He still applies bread. and wine in the 
Lord's Supper, and water in baptism — namely, old 
things for new uses, sacred symbols to give consola- 
tion and peace to true believers. 

Another objection adduced by infidels against the 
statements of the Mosaic record, is, that the whole 
story of the building of the tower of Babel seems ab^ 
surd. Now we reply, that unless they can show 
evidence demonstrative of its absurdity, we are not 
prepared to reject a historical fact, because to the 
squeamish taste of the infidel it appears to convey 
notions of absurdity. But to confirm the statement 
of Sacred Writ, we may state (as infidels would 
generally believe anybody sooner than Moses and 
Paul,) that Herodotus and Strabo, two ancient his- 
torians, both assert, that there was a tower built in 
Chaldea, called the tower of Belus, and that there 
were walks upon it, along which two chariots could 
drive abreast. And the remains discovered of it, as 
related by modern travellers, prove, that the account 
of the tower of Babel, declared to be absurd by in- 
fidels, is seen to be a fact by the researches of trav- 
ellers, as well as the records of heathen historians. 

Another objection is, that the narrative of the 
destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is absurd, and 
not founded in fact. Heathen writers refer to the 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY ? 203 

very same thing ; and that, moreover, on the soil on 
which those guilty capitals once stood, there are at 
this moment, as travellers have shown, distinct traces 
of such an overthrow as that recorded in the Word 
of God. Modern travellers declare, that the Dead 
Sea, on the site of which those cities stood, is so 
rilled with saline and bituminous matter, that the 
moment fish are carried down the clear waters of the 
Jordan into it they perish. It is not true that birds 
cannot fly across it ; but still it is of a very delete- 
rious character, and the whole country around it 
presents the bleakest and most uninviting prospects 
that man can imagine. The downfall of Sodom and 
Gomorrah, therefore, is still indicated by their sites, 
and is historically true. 

Another objection is, the notion of Lofs wife being 
turned into a pillar of salt, which is so ridiculous 
(it is said) as to be absolutely improbable. I think, 
on the contrary, when you consider the circumstances 
of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, it is 
highly probable. Lot's wife was commanded not to 
look back upon burning Sodom. She disobeyed ; 
out of the same curiosity that prompted Eve to eat 
of the forbidden fruit, she disobeyed the command 
of God. Instantly she was arrested (it is true, by a 
miracle, but a miracle that used the very circum- 
stances in which she was placed), and became a 
salso-bituminous mass; the sulphur and fire that 
were falling upon Sodom and Gomorrah, were made, 
by a righteous and offended God, to fall upon her 



204 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

and petrify her into a monument of the Divine judg- 
ments. The statement may not, however, of neces- 
sity mean, what we have supposed, that she was 
changed into muriate of soda, or what we call strictly 
salt ; but, as " I will make with you a covenant of 
salt," means "a perpetual covenant," so ''Lot's wife 
looked back from behind him, and she became a pil- 
lar of salt," may mean that she was there petrified, 
and stood a lasting monument of God's judgment on 
disobedience to his righteous will. 

Again: it has been objected, that in the account 
which we have of the miracles of Moses performed 
in Egypt, and of the counter- miracles performed by 
the Egyptian magicians, we see so slight a difference, 
that we must believe that the magicians evidently 
did miracles, as real and as good as those of Moses. 
They build this statement upon the fact recorded in 
the eighth chapter of Exodus, where it is added, 
when Moses performed miracles, "And the magi- 
cians did so with their enchantments :" and allege this 
to be a proof that the miracles of Moses were not 
beyond human power, since what he did, his rivals 
copied and performed also. It is not so clear that 
they did so. The context proves, that "They did 
so," means, " They attempted to do so ;" and we 
shall find the proof of this in the very facts of the 
case. For instance ; when Moses turned into blood 
all the waters of the river, the streams from every 
fountain, all that was in pail or pitcher, or vessel of 
any kind, it is added, " And the magicians did so 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY ? 205 

with their enchantments ;" but if Moses had turned 
all the water into blood, they could only attempt to 
do something like it, because, in reality, no water 
was left to be turned into blood. When Moses 
again, by the command of God, evoked frogs, and 
covered the whole land with these noxious animals, 
and the frogs were "in their houses and in their 
chambers, in their ovens and in their kneading- 
troughs," alike in the cottage and in the palace, it is 
added, "The magicians did so with their enchant- 
ments ;" but if the whole land was already covered, 
it is clear that they could not visibly create and 
call forth more ; they could only attempt to do it. 
Moreover, if the magicians had been possessed of 
miraculous power, when the Egyptians wished to 
banish the frogs from the land, here was an oppor- 
tunity for the exercise of their power ; but they were 
unable to do so. And in the eighth chapter we 
have a most decisive proof that " did so" simply 
means "attempted to do so;" for when Aaron 
brought lice upon man and upon beast, it is added 
(verse 18), "And the magicians did so with their 
enchantments to bring forth lice, but they could 
not;" and they themselves acknowledged, "This is 
the finger of God." They were conscious, that 
what they did before was merely a sort of legerde- 
main, or sleight-of-hand work; they attempted this 
as they did the rest ; but when they saw that they 
could not mimic, with any visible success, this mira- 
cle of Heaven, or deceive the senses any more, they 



206 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

confessed, "This is the finger of God." We may 
give the same explanation of their turning their rods 
into serpents ; the Hindoos and Chinese at this day 
profess to do this, as well as to swallow swords ; 
and from habit they are so expert at these feats, that 
they can make persons believe that they swallow the 
sword which is in their right hand, and that they 
turn the rod in their left hand into a serpent. The 
ancient magicians were no doubt masters of this art. 

Some one perhaps will say, " But why perform 
these miracles at all ? what was the necessity or 
meaning of it ?" The answer is, the first design was 
to convince the hardened Pharaoh that God's power 
was on the side of Israel. And if it be asked why 
so peculiar, and, to us, repulsive miracles were 
adopted, I answer, for great ends. The Nile, for 
instance, was the very god the Egyptians wor- 
shipped, and the turning its waters into blood was a 
powerful rebuke to their idolatry ; the serpent they 
also worshipped, as ancient inscriptions still show, 
and the turning of the rod of Aaron into a serpent, 
and causing it to swallow up the rest, was also a no 
less expressive demonstration against their idolatry. 
The whole of these miracles were not merely arbi- 
trary exhibitions and expressions of power, but also 
great and significant punishments of the gross and 
debasing idolatry which the Egyptians universally 
practised. 

Another objection, worthy of notice, is that made to 
the genealogies of our Lord, recorded, the one by St. 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY? 201 

Matthew, and the other by St. Luke. But by re- 
ferring to these genealogies, we shall see at once 
that there is not a particle of contradiction between 
them. Matthew, in giving his genealogy of our 
Lord, writes for the Jews, and gives the genealogy 
of Joseph, the reputed or legal father of our Lord. 
The name of every child of Israel was entered in the 
public records, and his father's and mother's name, 
in order to be standing memorials of their descent ; 
and Matthew, in the first chapter, begins with 
" Abraham begat Isaac, and Isaac begat Jacob," 
and so on, until in the sixteenth verse we read, 
" And Matthan begat Jacob, and Jacob begat Jo- 
seph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Je- 
sus, who is called Christ." The evidence, then, is 
decisive, that Matthew gives the genealogy of Jo- 
seph. ISTow let us refer to the Gospel of Luke; 
Matthew traces the genealogy from Abraham to Jo- 
seph, but Luke traces the genealogy from Christ to 
Abraham, and thence to Adam. Accordingly, we 
read in the third chapter of Luke — " And Jesus 
Himself began to be about thirty years of age, being 
(as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the 
son of Heli, which was the son of Matthat," and so 
on— son evidently meaning son-in-law. The infidel 
says, " How can this be true ? According to Mat- 
thew, we find Joseph represented as the son of Ja- 
cob, who was the son of Matthan ; but according to 
Luke, we find Joseph represented as the son of Heli, 
who was the son of Matthat. How can both be cor- 



208 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

rect ?" The answer is this : In Matthew, there is 
traced the genealogy of Joseph, and it is thereby 
proved that the reputed father of Christ was of the 
seed of Abraham and David ; in Luke, the genealogy 
of Mary, the mother of Christ, is traced, and it is 
thereby shown that by the mother's side he was of 
the seed of David and the son of Abraham. In 
Luke, be it observed, the words "the son" are in 
italics ; that is, they are not in the original ; and the 
literal rendering is — " Being, as was supposed" (or 
reputed in the public tablets), " the son," but, in 
reality, the son-in-law, " of Heli," and so on. In 
the one, you have the genealogy of Joseph ; in the 
other, the genealogy of Mary ; and instead of any 
collision between the two, there is ample proof of 
that unintended and natural harmony, which shows 
that they wrote as they were inspired by the Spirit 
of God. 

A question has been asked by objectors to revela- 
tion — " If Christianity be the boon that you repre- 
sent, why was God so long in disclosing this un- 
searchable and saving blessing to the mass of lost 
mankind ?" Now I answer this by asking a few 
other questions ; and when the objector has an- 
swered my questions, it will be time for me to reply 
to his. I ask, Why did the providence of God al- 
low so many years to transpire, before a Howard 
was found to visit the cells and the dungeons of 
Europe, to lighten and relieve their miseries ? Why 
did- the proyidence of God allow so long time to 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY ? 209 

elapse, before the tongue of a Wilberforce was heard 
within the walls of the senate of England, pleading 
for the African slave ? Why did Providence suffer 
so long a period to pass, before the West Indian 
slavery was utterly destroyed forever by the senate 
and the laws of Great Britain ? Why was vaccina- 
tion, that great discovery of modern times, so long 
in being found out, seeing it is such an alleviation of 
human disease and such an admirable source of hu- 
man health ? Why were so many years allowed to 
transpire before the secret powers of steam were 
discovered, and man thereby enabled to travel as 
philanthropists or missionaries, at a velocity, of 
which our forefathers never dreamed ? Now when 
the objector has answered all my questions, which 
involve the providence of God, then I will answer 
his question, which seems to him to involve the rev- 
elation of God. 

Another objection has been drawn from the limited 
spread of Christianity. It is said — " If Christianity 
be so transcendent a blessing, why is not the whole 
world brought under its saving and its sanctifying 
power?" Do we not find it to be matter-of-fact in 
almost every other province, and in respect to almost 
every other benefit, that the greatest blessings are 
enjoyed by the few ? Do we not find, that litera- 
ture, which has arisen to great height and perfection 
in England, is not known in large portions of Asia 
and Africa? Are not civilization — freedom — the 
national, social, and moral blessings enjoyed, and 
18* 



210 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

gratefully enjoyed, in England — strangers to Spain, 
Italy, and Africa ? So that when the objector has 
explained why some of our greatest national and 
social blessings are restricted to the few, and not 
distributed among the many, in the providence of 
God, it will be time for us to explain why Chris* 
tianity is restricted to the few, and not extended to 
the many, in the dispensation of the grace of God, 
The God of Providence is chargeable with the results 
of the first — if the God of Grace be with those of 
the last. I may add, however, that the Gospel pro- 
motes its triumphs by moral and spiritual weapons ; 
it appeals to men as possessed of judgment, of con- 
science, and of responsibility ; and rather than use 
one weapon interdicted in the sacred pages, it will 
wait patiently at the door of man's obdurate hearty 
knocking for admission still, and promising still, if 
he will open the door, the Saviour " will come in to 
him, and will sup with him/' 

" How comes it to pass, if the Bible be a revela- 
tion of God's mind, that there are so many varieties 
of opinion about it f The Independent draws one 
conclusion, the Baptist another, the Presbyterian a 
third, the Episcopalian a fourth, the Socinian a fifth, 
the Roman Catholic a sixth ; and why all this ? if it 
be a revelation of God's mind, why such varieties 
of opinion?" Some of these are but circumstantial 
differences. But may we not ask why such variety 
of opinion on every subject that comes under the 
cognizance of man ? If variety of interpretation be 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY? 211 

admitted as a disproof of the excellence of a docu- 
ment, it will land us in results we little expect. Take 
an Act of Parliament, when the House of Commons 
and the House of Lords have successively expended 
their wisdom and their eloquence in discussing it, 
and the queen has inspected and approved it, and 
set her seal to it ; wait for twelve months, and we 
shall find that Chancery is full of litigation as to the 
meaning of that very Act of Parliament. And what 
does this demonstrate ? That it is impossible in im- 
perfect language to convey ideas so fully, that man's 
frail judgment may not mistake them, and, above 
all, that man's guilty heart will not distort them. 
The cause of litigation is not so much that men really 
experience a difficulty in forming a right interpreta- 
tion of the Act of Parliament, but that A. wants 
this property or that advantage, and B. also wants 
it ; and therefore, pulling in the line of self, each 
will contend for an interpretation favorable to self. 

It is said — " But ministers of the Gospel do not 
always live as the Bible prescribes ; and if they pre- 
sent not patterns of its pure and lofty morality, is it 
not an evidence that they are not in earnest, and that 
they do not believe the Bible?" But does this dis- 
prove the Gospel ? The minister who preaches in 
the pulpit like an angel, and lives in the world like a 
devil, is the guiltiest man that the sun shines upon, 
or that treads the surface of the earth ; that minis- 
ter's preaching, if he preach God's word, is to be 
revered, but that minister himself is to be shunned if 



212 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

he lives in the practice of gross and open sin, though 
he should preach in strains a Demosthenes could not 
rival, or with eloquence an Apollos never reached. 
But I can never allow that the unholy life of any 
minister is a proof that Christianity is not right and 
good. You go to a physician, and he writes out a 
prescription for you, and gives you regulations as to 
diet and regimen and habits, as to what you are to 
eat and what you are to drink, and what course is 
the most healthy and most conducive to long life ; 
you follow that physician to the dinner table or into 
society, and you find that he does not live according 
to the prescriptions and restrictions he has laid upon 
you; do you therefore say that his prescription is 
wrong ? Not" at all ; you try the prescription not- 
withstanding, and you find it is right, though he does 
not live according to it. So say I here ; the pre- 
scription is good, the " balm in Gilead" is precious, 
the blood of Jesus is worthy to be made known and 
believed holy and free as the air, though all the phy- 
sicians that declare its virtue should lie against it by 
their lives. Judge the man by the word, not the 
word by the man. 

It is objected that the Gospel has led to wars, to 
impostures, to crimes, and to innumerable mischiefs. 
Christianity is not justly to be charged with the 
deeds that have been done in its sacred, but injured 
name. Christianity is not to be made responsible 
for the fearful deeds of the Inquisition, of Smith- 
field, of the Bartholomew massacre, and of the Sici- 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY? 213 

lian vespers, all of which it rebukes ; these sprang 
from the wickedness of man's heart, and not from 
Christianity. Nor is it to be charged with the wild 
and extravagant fanaticism of Joanna Southcote and 
others ; these were the corrupters and abusers of 
the truth, not its legitimate exponents. The very- 
best blessings we possess may be abused. Men may 
blaspheme in their prayers, or talk treason in their 
ordinary conversation, or poison each other in their 
meals ; but do we therefore infer, that we are not to 
pray, nor to talk, nor to eat ? No ; we are all too 
" wise in our generation," in the things of this world. 
Why, then, so inconsistent in regard to the things 
of a brighter and better world ? Why quote man's 
abuse as disproof of the excellence of God's gifts ? 
The abuse of any blessing by man is no proof that 
the blessing is not of God. 

It is said, there are mysteries in the sacred volume 
which we cannot understand, and therefore it cannot 
be a revelation from God to us. 

True, there are mysteries in the sacred volume ; 
but if there had been no mysteries in it, the infidel 
would have said, "This cannot be the inspiration of 
God, it wants those mysterious and incomprehensible 
features we might have expected from a revelation 
of the Infinite." 

The fact is, that a revelation of the incomprehen- 
sible God must contain some mysteries not compre- 
hensible by man. The exhibition of that which is 
infinite, unsearchable, and immeasurable, must surely 



214 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

be beyond the finite and puny understanding of man 
to appreciate or comprehend fully. Its mysteries 
are presumptions in its favor. But what would you 
think of a school-boy, if he were to say that the 
Newtonian philosophy is false because he cannot 
comprehend it ? Your reply would be — " That 
philosophy is demonstrated to be true, whether you 
can comprehend it or not, and your present compre- 
hension is no test of its truth or the reverse.' ' The 
fault is in the mind, not in the subject. Does the 
infidel meet with no mysteries in the world around 
him? Let him explain to me the courses of the 
stars ; or, in language I can understand, the circula- 
tion of the blood, the pulsation of the heart, the 
effects of volition, or the union that knits the soul to 
its earthly and perishable tabernacle. After he has 
explained the mysteries of a blade of grass or a grain 
of dust, the mysteries of the earth on which he 
treads, the mysteries of the ocean on which he sails, 
the mysteries of the sky on which he looks, the 
mysteries which his own body and his own soul con- 
tain, it will be time for us to explain to him the 
mysteries of the Word of God. But if mysteries in 
creation be no proof that God did not make the 
world, so mysteries in revelation can be no proof that 
God did not inspire the Bible. On the contrary, the 
fact that there are mysteries in it is presumptive 
evidence that it has God for its author, as it has 
truth for its matter and salvation for its glorious 
end. Every new truth we see come within the 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY ? 215 

horizon is intimately related to another, and the more 
we see the more we find remains to be seen. Truth 
is infinite, and our progress will be infinite also. 

You will find, however, that while the language 
that deseribes and the similes that portray the char- 
acter of God are mysterious and inscrutable, the plan 
and the mode of salvation, all that is essential to our 
salvation, are so clear, that the " wayfaring man" 
may understand and appreciate them. And if I ad- 
dress a reader who objects to Scripture, and says he 
does not relish and understand it, let me tell him 
there was a day when I also did not relish the Scrip- 
ture — when I sat down to peruse it because my 
father and my mother told me, but I was weary of 
it and wished it done ; nay, there was a day when I 
doubted of its heavenly origin, and it was not till I 
had read treatise after treatise, that I came to the 
conviction, a conviction as strong as that there is a 
God in heaven, that this Book is the Book of God, 
Our taste will be gradually raised to its height by 
perusing it Untutored taste often fails to appre- 
ciate first-rate excellence. Blessed, blessed be the 
God who gave such a Book to poor lapsed and err- 
ing man. 

I have no doubt of the conclusion to which anv 

j 

man will come, if he will pursue the course, first of 
inquiring — and it is great guilt to decline the trouble 
of examining a Book which professes to be the Book 
of God ; it is telling the Almighty that the knowl- 
edge of Him and the matters of eternity and the in- 



216 18 CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

terests of souls are not worthy of a moment's thought 
—next going to it in the spirit of prayer, saying 
with David, " Oh ! send out Thy light and Thy truth, 
let them lead me and guide me"— -bending your 
knee, proud infidel ! in the presence of the Searcher 
of hearts, bowing your spirit before Him, asking Him 
to show you "the way and the truth and the life." 
Suppose that in some part of this little work you 
should meet with a sentence you do not understand ; 
you might apply to some gifted minister or critic for 
an explanation of it, but on failing to get satisfaction, 
you hear that the author is living, and is accessible ; 
would you not resolve tjo apply to him for a satisfac- 
tory explanation ? Sow do treat God's Word as 
fairly as you would treat man's book ; go to the ever 
present Author, who "hears in heaven His dwelling 
place ;" ask Him in prayer to teach you the meaning 
of the sacred volume, and He will irradiate that 
volume with noon-day splendor, and fill your mind 
with noon- day light. 

The true way of understanding Scripture is com- 
paring passage with passage, text with text. As a 
diamond can be cut best by another diamond, so will 
one text resolve and explain another. Bishop Hors- 
ley, one of the greatest of critics, has said — " It were 
to be wished that no Bibles were printed without 
references. Particular diligence should be used in 
comparing the parallel texts of the Old and New 
Testament. It is incredible how much scriptural 
knowledge one may acquire without any other com- 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY? 217 

Bientary or exposition, than what the different parts 
of the sacred volume mutually furnish to each other. 
Let the most illiterate Christian study Scripture in 
this way, comparing text with text, and the whole 
compass of abstruse philosophy and recondite history 
shall furnish no argument with which the perverse 
will of man shall be able to shake this plain Chris- 
tian's faith." You will find this arrangement admir- 
ably executed in Bagster's Bible. 

There are, however, two lights in which a man 
may read the Scriptures ; the light of reason, and 
the light of the Spirit of God. Critics and scholars 
have read them in the former light, and passed to 
that place where— 

" Hope withering flees, and Mercy sighs Farewell." 

But the illiterate man, who has read them in the 
light of God's Spirit, has found in them the way to 
everlasting life. Suppose I were to go forth to some 
lovely landscape in some of the most beauteous parts 
of Scotland, and were to look upon it at the hour of 
midnight, while the moon shone full around me, I 
should find it dim and obscure ; I could not trace 
the windings of the streamlet, nor discern the deli- 
cate loveliness of the panorama ; not from any de- 
fects in the landscape, but from defects in the me- 
dium through which I viewed it. But let me visit 
it the next day at noon, and I shall see every flower 
with its beauteous tints, every streamlet meandering 
towards the ocean, every field in its verdure, every 
19 



218 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

forest in its thick and majestic foliage. The whole 
landscape is changed. And why ? Because in the 
hazy light of the moon it could not be distinctly 
seen, but in the full light of the sun everything is 
clear and visible. So it is with this Book. Read 
the Bible by the dusky light of reason, and it is 
covered with a film ; clouds and darkness rest upon 
it. But bring it with bent knee and with broken 
heart, and place it beneath the rays of the Sun of 
righteousness ; and in the clear light of Christ you 
will clearly " see light.'* 



CHAPTER X. 



DOCTRINAL DIFFICULTIES. 



In the former chapter I explained and tried to 
neutralize the objections which the impugners of 
Revelation urge against some of the facts and char- 
acteristic features of Christianity. In this chapter I 
will endeavor to vindicate the peculiar and character- 
istic doctrines of the Gospel from those objections 
which have been alleged to be fatal to the claims of 
Christianity. 

We admit there are difficulties in some parts of 
sacred writ ; but we must not fail to recollect, that 
there is no one science within the range of the cog- 
nizance of man, in which difficulties, and great diffi- 
culties, are not found; some inexplicable on any 
known principles, and incomprehensible by human 
intellect. Are there no difficulties in medicine ? are 
there no difficulties in law ? are there no perplexities 
in the occurrences and employments of ordinary life? 
And yet no man is so irrational as to infer that there 
can be no truth in medicine, nor in law, nor in his- 
tory, philosophy, and science, because there are 
depths that the plumb-line of man's judgment is 



220 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

unable to fathom, and difficulties man's mind cannot 
explain. There are difficulties, we again assert, in 
sacred writ: and if there were no such difficulties 
there, so vast that my puny mind must fail and sink 
•when it tries to grasp and comprehend them, I 
should say there was a strong a priori presumption 
that the Book was not from God. I must believe a 
priori that a revelation from God will contain depths 
that we cannot fathom, heights that we cannot climb, 
intimations and thoughts from afar we are unable to 
bring clearly within the horizon of our minds ; that 
it will be like the waters seen by Ezekiel — in some 
parts reaching to the ancles, in some parts to the 
knees, in some parts to the middle, and in others 
" waters to swim in, a river that could not be passed 
over." In the language of one who has well de- 
scribed the sacred volume, " There are shallows in it 
where lambs may wade, and depths in it where ele- 
phants may swim." 

One of the doctrines of sacred writ frequently 
cavilled at, is the doctrine of the Trinity. We hold 
— and all who are worthy of the name of Christian 
hold — that there is one living and true God, and yet 
that there is what is called in the language of the- 
ology the Trinity — that is, three persons, (the word 
person is perhaps the fullest English rendering of 
the Greek tinooxctvig) though but one God. 

Now if it be asked, can you explain this ? — I 
answer, No. Can you comprehend this ? — I answer, 



DOCTRINAL DIFFICULTIES. 221 

No. But if you add, Do you not then reject this ? 
— I answer, No. Such an inference must lead to 
universal Pyrrhonism. There are mysteries in every 
beating heart, mysteries in every blade of grass ; but 
if the incomprehensible nature of facts in any history, 
or science, or providence, be admitted as arguments 
against the science to which they severally belong^ 
we must necessarily be plunged in universal scepti- 
cism, as well as hurried into an abyss of downright 
absurdity. The Bible asserts plainly that the Father 
is God ; it asserts as plainly that the Son is God ; 
it asserts as plainly that the Holy Spirit is God ; 
and yet it repeats and reiterates at the very same 
moment, and with the implied clear recollection of 
all its separate announcements, that there is but one 
living and true God, to whom the name of Triune 
Jehovah is exclusively applicable. The Scripture 
announces it as a truth, just as nature evolves a fact ; 
a truth interwoven with our salvation, but inexpli- 
cable to our judgment. 

But let me ask the mere theist, the man who 
merely admits the existence of a God, will he escape 
in his supposed simplicity of creed all such inexpli- 
cable mysteries ? He will not. What can he make 
of omnipotence ? what can he understand of omni- 
presence ? what can he grasp of omniscience ? We 
cannot understand or comprehend these attributes. 
It is very well to talk of omnipresence as an axiom ; 
but what can we conceive of a Being here and 
yet there, in England and yet in India, present in 
19* 



222 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

every spot through the vast infinitude of space? 
What can we comprehend of a Being eternally ex- 
istent ; so that when we have added millions and 
millions upon millions more of years, we have not 
reached His age, nor measured the duration of His 
being, nor arrived nearer the end, nor remoter from 
the beginning ? What can we know of eternity ? 
Literally nothing ; it is perfectly incomprehensible ; 
it is an unsearchable depth. And if the fact that 
the Trinity is incomprehensible leads you to reject 
revelation, the fact that eternity, omniscience, om- 
nipresence, attributes you must clothe your God 
withal, are also incomprehensible, will lead you to 
deny the existence of a God ; and the deist will land 
at last in the extreme where difficulties are mul- 
tiplied, not diminished, the monstrous extreme at 
which all nature shudders — that we are a Fatherless 
family, and inhabit a Creatorless world. 

The Trinity is not a contradiction, but a truth 
partly luminous — as luminous as our vision can bear, 
and as largely so as our comprehension can grasp. 
It is a truth distinctly told, but not explained — it is 
a revelation, but not an analysis. It is so plainly 
declared that we can easily see what it is, but not 
how it is. There is enough told for our salvation, 
and none for our curiosity — enough for Christians in 
the closet, the sanctuary, and the death-bed ; but 
none for philosophers in the Stoa, the Lyceum, or 
the schools. 

There is another doctrine, which has been the 



DOCTRINAL DIFFICULTIES. 223 

subject of the scorn of the infidel ; namely, predesti- 
nation, or election. The Scriptures assert, in the 
plainest terms, that " whom God did foreknow, He 
also did predestinate to be conformed to the image 
of His Son ;" and again, " He hath chosen us before 
the foundation of the world," not because we were 
holy, but "that we should be holy." If these pas- 
sages are admitted to be in the Bible (and I might 
quote many such,) there, can be no question that 
predestination is a Scripture doctrine. 

Now it is delightful to every dispassionate inquirer, 
that here the theology of the Bible and the findings 
of the highest metaphysics exactly coincide. In 
that great work, the treatise on the freedom of the 
will, by Jonathan Edwards, the most acute of 
metaphysicians, we see it proved by principles of 
pure philosophical investigation, that predestination 
or moral necessity is a truth. 

But, with mystery, yet without contrariety, the 
Scriptures assert that we are free agents ; that we 
are responsible for our belief, our practice, our re- 
ception or rejection of the claims and tenets of 
Christianity. But the infidel asks — How do you 
reconcile these ? you say that we are predestinated, 
or elect, and yet you say that we are free agents. 
I do assert both ; and why ? — because the Bible 
distinctly reveals both. On one page it proclaims, 
" No man can come to Me, unless the Father which 
hath sent Me draw him ;" here is God's sovereignty. 
On another page — " Ye will not come to Me, that 



224 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

ye might have life;" here is man's responsibility. 
If you ask me, How do you reconcile these ? — I 
answer, That is not my province. I am not called 
upon to reconcile, but to receive, revealed truths. 
The two truths are distinctly announced. In their 
contact only does mystery evolve. The one teaches 
me my responsibility, and the other, the necessity 
of Divine help. I can act, and look, and learn, 
where I cannot reconcile. I have proved this Book 
to be an emanation from God, and this Book asserts 
alike the election of God and the responsibility of 
man ; how they are reconciled I cannot demonstrate, 
but that they are reconcilable I have not a doubt the 
light of another world will clearly disclose. The 
defect is not in these truths, but in my understand- 
ing. A true philosopher will never reject facts and 
phenomena in the natural world because he cannot 
reconcile them ; and a true Christian will not reject 
doctrines revealed in the Bible for the same reason, 
let a person discover one fact in science, and then a 
second fact, which he cannot harmonize or reconcile 
or explain consistently with the first ; he does not 
say, " I will now reject or disbelieve one or both of 
these facts ;" but he says, " I will lay them up in my 
memory, and subsequent light and maturer investiga- 
tion may lead me to detect harmony where at present 
I discover only discord." Xow let us treat the Bible 
in the same way. Receive facts and doctrines as 
they are here declared. Let the first and great 
question be, whether these doctrines be in the Bible ; 



DOCTRINAL DIFFICULTIES. 225 

if they be, we are to wait till time shall harmonize 
those that seemingly differ — not to reject one or both 
because we cannot at present explain or comprehend 
them. 

I see the two ends of a chain near and luminous, 
each indicating a plain and obvious duty. Let me 
not forget these duties in unprofitable attempts to 
trace out the mysterious intermediate links that con- 
nect them. 

Another proposition in the Scriptures frequently 
objected to, is the incarnation of Christ. The infidel 
asks, How can you suppose that we rational beings 
will believe that God was man, and yet that man 
was God ; or that God came into our nature and 
suffered death upon the cross, was crucified as a male- 
factor, and buried as a criminal ? We answer, the 
true question is first, Is God's Word truth? and 
next, Are these things asserted in it ? If they be 
plainly revealed there, it is not our province, as it 
may not be in our power, to harmonize or reconcile 
them. It is our duty, as it is also our privilege, to 
receive, to believe, to rest upon them. 

In the Bible this great doctrine is plainly stated. 
To our minds it is plainly incomprehensible how the 
finite and infinite could coalesce — how Deity and hu- 
manity could be in his sufferings, how the deepest 
capacity of temptation and entire impossibility of be- 
ing overcome — how want and fulness, strength and 
weakness, ignorance of " that day and hour" and yet 
omniscience, could be together — the great fact is 



226 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

clearly written—the mode of its existence is all 
mystery, 

But the idea of the incarnation is not so unnatural 
and unanticipated by man as many are disposed to 
think. The ancient heathen entertained a kindred 
notion. Many of their philosophers believed that 
God was the soul of the world, and the universe the 
visible incarnation of God ; they believed in what we 
might call the materialization of God. The Hindoos 
at this moment entertain an idea that approximates 
most closely to this, viz. — the incarnation of their 
Vishnu, or deity. Thus reason in its progress has 
touched the skirts and caught some beam of the 
glory of revelation, and risen unaided to some notion 
very much akin to the incarnation. This great doc- 
trine of the Scriptures is thereby proved to be not 
so unlikely or so contrary to man's notions that it 
ought to be rejected at the first blush. True, no 
logic of man can reconcile the fact, that He who wept 
on Olivet was He also who reigned in heaven ; that 
He who bled upon the cross, was He who sat upon 
the throne ; that He who cried, " My God, My God, 
why hast thou forsaken Me ?" — was He who " said, 
Let there be light, and there was light ;" that the 
infant sleeeping in the manger was " the mighty God, 
the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace." But 
though we cannot harmonize these infinite facts, yet 
we can receive them as the most glorious truths that 
were ever breathed into the ear or poured into the 
heart of poor humanity. For what is Christ ? He 



DOCTRINAL DIFFICULTIES. 227 

is just the meeting-place — -or, ~as the old Scottish 
writers would have called it, the trysting place — be- 
tween heaven and earth ; he is the filler up of the 
tremendous chasm that sin made between God and 
man — the sacred and holy spot, where man can meet 
God notwithstanding all his sins, and where God can 
meet man and yet be a holy and righteous God ; He 
is that sacred isthmus between eternity and time, 
washed by the one and uirvvasted by the other, with- 
in the precincts of which heaven and earth coalesce 
in glorious and indissoluble harmony, and over which 
God appears " just and yet the justifier of him that 
belie veth in Jesus." Though we cannot descend to 
the fathomless glory of this great truth, yet we can 
see the practical and precious results that flow from 
the admission of it. 

The idolatry of ancient nations was just man's 
mind struggling after something like the incarnation. 
Man had lost God in consequence of sin, and he so 
felt it. It then became his effort to bring God down 
to him, seeing he could not rise to God ; and in or- 
der to do so, he represented Him by stones, by wood, 
by gold and silver, and such like corruptible things ; 
making the imaginary likeness a substitute for the 
original. This was man's anticipation, as it were, of 
an incarnation — it was nature's rude presentiment of 
Christianity — creation's throes and groans for the 
manifestation of God. And when Christ came, He 
abolished forever the necessity and made more ob- 
vious the guilt of all material personations of God, 



228 

by presenting in Himself " the brightness of the 
Father's glory and the express image of His per- 
son." 

Again : it has been contended, that the idea of 
satisfaction made to God for sin, or the necessity of 
Christ's dying in order that God might forgive sinners, 
is contrary to the reason and understanding of man, and 
inconsistent with such notions of the true God as we 
are able by nature to attain. Xow, the first question 
upon this, as upon every other doctrine, is — Is the doc- 
trine revealed in Scripture ? All revelation distinctly 
testifies, that Christ died " the Just in the room of the 
unjust, that He might bring us to God" — that we 
are " Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb ;" in fact, 
all the phraseology that was applied to the sacrificial 
offerings of the Jews, is distinctly and emphatically 
applied to the perfect atonement and the sacrifice of 
Christ Jesus. 

God demanded this satisfaction, not because He 
had any pleasure in suffering, or any delight in 
death ; the very reverse. It was not the atonement 
that was the cause of God's love, but God's love 
that was the cause of the atonement. We can per- 
ceive no other way according to which God could 
be true and just and holy, and yet save the chiefest 
of sinners. If God had relaxed all the penalties of 
His law, that law which is not a mere arbitrary en- 
actment, but the essentia], ever obligatory, and eter- 
nal expression of His mind, and will, and nature — 
if He had admitted sinners into heaven without anv 



DOCTRINAL DIFFICULTIES. 229 

satisfaction, or atonement, or visible vindication of 
His character — then Satan's word would have been 
true ; Satan's policy would have triumphed ; God's 
word would have been proved false, and Omnipo- 
tence overcome. God's assertion was — " In the day 
that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die;" 
Satan's assertion was — "Ye shall not surely die" 
Which was to be proved true ? If God had admit- 
ted to the blessings of his glory the men that broke 
the rescripts of His law, Satan's prediction would 
have been proved to be true, and God's proclama- 
tion would have been proved to be false. It there- 
fore became necessary, as far as we can see, that 
God should save sinners in such a way as would 
show Him the same just, the same holy, the same 
true God, as if all sinners had been eternally banished 
from His presence ; and yet the same merciful and 
loving God, as if all creatures had been universally 
reclaimed. We therefore see a moral necessity for 
the atonement of Christ. We cannot see how God 
could have been enthroned in the supremacy of holy 
and universal empire, unless by such a process as 
that which is revealed in the Scriptures. 

Moreover, if God had admitted sinners into heaven 
without any exhibition of His hatred of sin, what 
would other worlds or created intelligences probably 
have concluded ? What would the inhabitants of 
other stars have said ? They must have concluded — 
" This God is not the holy God we imagined ; He 
winks at sin ; He pronounces threats merely as make- 



230 is Christianity from god ? 

believes ; He has indeed a law, but it is a law which 
we may break with impunity." The universe would 
have been disorganized ; G-od would have been vir- 
tually dethroned. Such a God could not have been 
the God revealed in the Bible. He cannot thus let 
down His law, and be indulgent, that is, unjust and 
unholy, in dealing with the sins of mankind. The 
idea of a God without an atonement pardoning sin- 
ners, suggests such perplexities as these. Will God 
equally pardon all sinners ? The mere theist must 
answer No. Will He then equally punish all sin- 
ners ? The theist must also answer No. How low 
will His justice descend in punishing, and how high 
will His love rise in rewarding ? Without the light 
of revelation we are driven to form an idea of Diety 
which implies a composite of imperfections ; a God 
imperfectly just in order to be benevolent, and im- 
perfectly benevolent in order to be just. 

But, say some, would it not have been better if 
God had prevented sin altogether, instead of per- 
mitting it, and then taking this seemingly round- 
about way to annihilate and forgive it ? We might 
answer, in the first place — If the fact be plainly re- 
vealed in God's Book, " who art thou that repliest 
against God ?" 

But the very same objection that is thus made to 
the introduction of sin and sin's cure, may be made 
with equal force to all that occurs in the world around 
us. Is not the whole system of the world a system 
of permitted wrong-doing and of merciful repairing ; 



DOCTRINAL DIFFICULTIES. 231 

a system of disease and of cure ; a system of suffer- 
ing and of amendment; a system of pain and of 
subsequent pleasure ? If the suffered introduction 
of evil tells against God's Book of revelation, will 
not the suffered action of it tell against God's Prov- 
idence? Why has God permitted disease and pain 
and suffering and distress, instead of preventing 
them? Why allow them to be, and then take a 
round-about way to repair and amend them ? 

In what way could God have prevented sin from 
coming into the world ? Man was made a free agent 
- — responsible — without any bias to sin or to wicked- 
ness. If God had restrained Adam by physical 
coercion, man would not have been a free and re- 
sponsible being. He was left to the freedom of his 
own will, with a bias to holiness, and j r et he rebelled 
and revolted against God. 

An archangel fell Could man stand ? May it 
not be true that in Christ only can the universe 
stand ? that redemption, not creation, is the only 
platform on which man or seraph can abide in holi- 
ness ? May not the permitted fall have been only a 
preliminary to the perfect redemption ? 

It has been asserted, in the next place, that the 
system of mediation and of a Mediator revolts against 
all our experience. This is but following out of the 
same objection. But is the system of a Mediator 
between God and man not in accordance with the 
findings of human experience, and the analogies of 
human nature ? We believe it is in beautiful har- 
21 



232 

mony with the works and ways of God, discoverable 
elsewhere, that the provision of a Mediator between 
God and man is only the addition of a kindred link 
to the chain of mediation that girds the world and 
upholds creation around us. For instance : when 
the mother brings her infant into the world, and 
nurses and tends it at her breast, what is that mother, 
but, in a sense, a mediatrix towards that infant ? 
When a man by accident, or in the practice of sin, 
breaks a bone of his body, we find that nature gives 
out at the fractured part a substance (the name of 
which I know not,) and commences a process of 
mediation, by which the loss is supplied, the fracture 
healed, and the limb restored. Or if a sinew in the 
human frame is cut, nature begins immediately a 
process of mediation at the divided part, repairs the 
breach, and heals the wound. What is this, but 
mediation in our families and mediation in our cor- 
ruptible bodies ? We thus see mediation going on 
in nature : and if nature mediates in man's body, 
shall God be forbidden to mediate in man's soul ? 
If nature heals the wounds that take place in the 
one, by a mediatory process, shall it be thought in- 
congruous in God to restore that union between the 
soul and God, which has been broken and inter- 
rupted by sin, by the interposition of a Mediator who 
shall lay one hand on the throne of God, and the 
other on the crushed, broken, and guilty heart of 
man, and bind both into one ? Thus creation bears 
affinities to revelation, and both indicate a common 



DOCTRINAL DIFFICULTIES. 233 

Author so truly, that he who admits the one cannot, 
without inconsistency, reject the other. 

Do we not see the very same process illustrated 
in providence ? What is an asylum, provided by the 
benevolence of the charitable for the relief and heal- 
ing of the wounded and the sick, but a sort of media- 
torial institution ? What was the apostle, but a sort 
of mediator in his place ? What is the missionary, 
but a sort of mediator in his toils ? And what has 
been the history of the world, but a history of medi- 
ation — the "fathers sowing in tears," the "children 
reaping in joy" — the forefathers bearing the brunt 
of battle, the tumult of the storm, and we, the 
children, reaping the laurels of peace, the sunshine, 
and the calm ? Thus every man is in one sense a 
mediator ; and all that we have to admit, in order to 
admit the mediation of the gospel, is, that there is 
the addition of a new and more glorious link to this 
chain which wraps the world and connects together 
all its tenantry — a link that binds the sinner to his 
Saviour, the creature to his Creator, lost man to his 
reconciled God. 

In the next place, it has been objected by the in- 
fidel, that if there be, as astronomy teaches us, 
thousands and thousands more of worlds, it seems 
altogether inconsistent with just views of the charac- 
ter of God and of the vastness of His empire, that 
He should be so much interested in this petty world, 
which is but as a grain of sand in comparison with 
the thousands that fill infinite space ; that He should 



234 . IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

be so taken up with it, that He should come and be 
incarnate and die in it, when there are thousands of 
orbs a thousand times bigger and more worthy of 
and entitled to our Creator's care. To this I reply 
as before, that the same Bible which gives the 
clearest proofs of the moral glory of God, declares 
it to have been so ; were there no explanations satis- 
factory to our minds, the simple announcement of 
the fact on God's authority would be enough. 

But do we not find, in this world, that a king 
selects a particular spot, it may be but a little corner 
of his empire, to be the lesson-book in which all the 
rest of his subjects may read, political, moral, and 
social lessons ? And may not this earth, minute as 
it may be, amid the countless orbs that fill the 
infinitude of space, be that consecrated corner, in 
which the King eternal has engraven in characters 
that shall live forever the lessons of His holiness, 
His justice, His mercy, and His truth ? May not 
this earth be that living and legible tablet, from 
which there beams forth " Glory to God in the 
highest, and on earth peace," in important and 
precious lessons to thousands and thousands more 
of worlds that are around it ? As there are worlds 
beyond worlds infinitely, may not scenes visible on 
earth reach these worlds in succession? Light 
would travel from the earth to the sun in four minutes. 
There may be worlds so much more remote than the 
sun, that Calvary may just now be visible to their 



DOCTRINAL DIFFICULTIES. 235 

inhabitants, whose organs see as many millions of 
miles as we do inches. 

The analogies of our experience in another way- 
bear out the proposition, that God should thus have 
regard to this little world amid the thousands that 
are around it. If a shepherd have lost one sheep, 
doth he not, in the beautiful words of our Lord, 
" leave the ninety and nine, and go after that which 
is lost until he find it ?" — and when he has found it, 
he rejoices over it with more joy than over the ninety 
and nine that remained in their fold. Or, to vary 
the lesson, if a mother has a family of many children, 
and if one has gone astray — if he has gone to distant 
lands, or is on the far-off bosom of the deep — is it 
not true, that every gale that blows, every surge that 
dashes, every messenger that comes from abroad, 
awakens more anxiety in that mother's heart, than 
all her children that never wandered or strayed from 
home ; and does she not exert more efforts to restore 
and expend more anxieties upon the safety of that 
one wandering child, than upon all the rest who have 
been ever with her at her fireside ? Thus do we find 
the analogies of our experience in perfect consonance 
with the disclosures of sacred writ. This world is 
the strayed star, that has gone far away from the 
Sun of Righteousness ; and God has come after it, 
in the mightiness of His mercy, to reclaim and to re- 
store it. Man is the prodigal child, that has left his 
Father's house, and wasted his substance in riotous 
living ; and God has gone after him, to recover him 



236 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

and to bring him home ; and the accents of joy have 
filled high heaven, because the lost one is found, the 
dead at length is once more alive. 

It is in vain for infidels and others to bring objec- 
tions against the Gospel from the disclosures of as- 
tronomy ; for the more we examine the facts of this 
science, the more do we find it bear out the great 
truths contained in the Gospel. Not only do its 
facts confirm, but its disclosures illustrate the truths 
of Christianity. Sir Isaac Newton, the wisest of 
human philosophers and the greatest of human in- 
tellects, discovered that the same law of gravitation 
keeps a planet in its orbit and regulates the pendu- 
lum of a common clock ; that the same law that 
determines the path of a planet, determines the fall 
of a feather or a leaf also. Nov/ may not this show 
a new analogy between astronomy and revelation ? 
There is that in the Gospel, which corresponds to 
gravitation. It is the love of God. It is the gravi- 
tation of Christianity. This love of God retains the 
orphan in his allegiance, the saint in his attachment, 
the angel in his place, and the hierarch in his holi- 
ness before and around the throne. The same prin- 
ciple that binds the sinner to his God, binds also the 
archangel to his Creator. Gravitation is in the ma- 
terial world, what love to God is in the moral and 
spiritual world. It may be found by yet deeper 
discoveries, that astronomy, instead of impugning 
revelation, will peal from star to star that Christi- 
anity is Truth, and all true science, like all redeemed 



DOCTRINAL DIFFICULTIES. 237 

things, shall eventually bow the knee to Jesus and 
acknowledge Him ; and its Newtons and its Laplaces, 
reluctantly or willingly, do homage to the Lamb that 
sitteth on the throne. 

It has been said by objectors to revelation, that 
all the experience of man is against the idea of a 
resurrection of the body. We maintain, on the con- 
trary, that all experience is decidedly in favor of such 
a hereafter existence to man. Look, for instance, at 
the unattractive insect that lies upon the blade of 
grass or upon the cabbage leaf; and in a few short 
days you find that insect floating in the air, in all the 
beauteous colors of the rainbow. Look at the dry 
root in the gloomy season of winter; and when 
spring comes forth, you find that root bloom into a 
beauteous rose. Look at the egg-shell ; in that 
there is the eagle, that is to wing its flight above all 
other birds, and rivet its eye upon the meridian sun. 
The doctrine of the resurrection is not inconsistent 
with the analogies of nature or the experience of 
our common history. 

It has been alleged, that it is contrary to our ex- 
perience that the soul should live separate from the 
body. We say, on the other hand, that it is conso- 
nant, not contrary to it. As well might you say, 
when you see the candle burning in the lantern, that 
because you see that candle in the lantern only, 
therefore it cannot burn out of it. Because you see 
the chicken in the egg-shell, would you say it can- 
not live out of the egg-shell ? Would you say, be- 



238 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

cause the child must be in continuity with its mother 
before it is born, therefore after it is born it cannot 
live separate from its mother ? Such is the reason- 
ing of the man who would say, because he knows of 
the soul in the body only, therefore there is a pre- 
sumption that the soul will never live out of the 
body. 

It is said, again, by those who impugn revelation, 
that all Divine influence from above exerted on man, 
or the residence of the Holy Spiiit in the hearts of 
believers, is incredible. Kirby, in his Bridgewater 
Treatise, has asserted, that instinct, even in animals, 
is a direct emanation from the Deity ; and, if this 
should be so, is it not proof that Divine influence is 
not contrary to our experience, or impossible ? What 
does the loadstone teach ? what enables it to direct 
the mariner upon the stormy deep, and to guide him 
in his course by pointing towards the pole ? An in- 
fluence given it from above. Study the hop-plant ; 
if there is no pole to support it when it springs up, 
it spreads along the ground as if in search of one, 
and on a pole being placed near it, it moves more 
rapidly in that direction, clings to it as in ecstasy, 
and grows with double speed, as if to reimburse 
itself for delay, and rejoice that it has found its sup- 
port. Is not this an influence given it for its preser- 
vation ? Or I take you to the sunflower, that inclines 
its blossom ever to the sun in his daily course. What 
is this but a sort of Divine influence imparted even 
to the vegetables ? And if the hop is thus enabled 






DOCTRINAL DIFFICULTIES. 239 

by some mysterious impulse to cling to the pole that 
supports it, shall it be thought inconsistent with our 
experience, that man's sinking soul shall be taught 
and drawn by the Spirit of God to cling to the Rock 
of ages, the Rod of Jesse, the Lord Jesus Christ ? 

It has been objected, that there appears in the 
revelations of Scripture a disproportion between sin 
and the punishment of sin hereafter, and that this 
disproportion is so palpable that it revolts against 
all the experience and the analogies of nature. It is 
not in our judgment contrary to the experience and 
the analogies of nature. Sin against God is of in- 
finite demerit. For instance ; if an equal strike an 
equal, it is a great offence ; if a soldier strike his 
superior officer, it is a greater offence ; if a subject 
strike his king, it is held in human law to be a still 
greater offence ; so that the principle is in our ex- 
perience admitted, that the offence rises in aggrava- 
tion according to the dignity of the person against 
whom it is perpetrated. Who, then, is prepared to 
deny, that man's sin against an infinite God may not 
rise to the amount of an infinite offence ? Who shall 
determine the extent and measure of the analogy you 
sanction ? Who is prepared to prove, since sin rises 
in aggravation according to the dignity of him against 
whom it is committed, that it may not rise to an in- 
finite turpitude when committed against an infinite 
God, and thus justly merit infinite retribution ? 

Moreover we see even a small offence actually lead 
to a very heavy punishment. A single rash or false 



240 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

word may lead to mischiefs that centuries cannot 
repair ; and here is surely a disproportion between 
the offence and the penalty, even in the dealings of 
Providence, and in our experience in this world. A 
sober man begins to drink, and to indulge in habits 
of intoxication ; and the consequence of the appa- 
rently trifling act, his taking so many glasses of al- 
cohol, are, that his family are starving, his character 
is blasted, his body is diseased, and his soul probably 
lost. So that we see, in this world, what seems to 
be a trivial offence followed by a punishment to us 
apparently disproportioned. 

In the next place, it has been contended that 
Christianity itself states, that the learned, and the 
wise, and the great, are not generally professors of 
its faith, and do not admit its truth and its inspira- 
tion of God. We answer, that it does indeed say 
that " not many wise men are called,'' but it is men 
" wise in their own conceit ;" " not many mighty, 
not many noble," — if this passage refer to private be- 
lievers, — but it is chiefly those who believe them- 
selves so. And the experience of its truths in the 
heart, is different from believing them in the mind. 
It is fact, however, that the very elite of human in- 
tellect, the lights and the ornaments of the human 
race, have been devout and faithful followers of the 
Lamb of God. Need I tell you, that Newton, the 
first genius in astronomy, was a devout and a pray- 
ing Christian ? that Milton, whose name ranks high- 
est in the fields of poesy, was a humble Christian ? 






DOCTRINAL DIFFICULTIES. 241 

that Locke, the greatest of metaphysicians, was a 
most devoted Christian ? that Euler and Kepler, and 
other most distinguished names, that have shed a 
halo upon the world through which they passed by 
their vast and splendid discoveries, were devout and 
sincere Christians ? And though it be true that we 
are not to believe Christianity because great men 
hare believed it, though it be true that we are " not 
to call any man Master," yet may we rest assured, 
when such men, after patient research, come to the 
conclusion that the Bible is the Word of God, it be- 
comes us moderate men at most to pause before we 
reject what their gifted minds received on their com- 
petent and sufficient investigation. 

It has been asserted, further, that the leading doc- 
trine of Christianity — justification by faith alone — 
leads to immorality. This is an objection of the in- 
fidel and Roman Catholic together. Our reply to it 
is, that the same Bible, which tells us that we are 
"justified by faith without the deeds of the law," 
tells us also that " without holiness no man shall see 
the Lord ;" the same book that declares that 
morality is useless as a plea, tells us it is essential as 
an evidence; that same Book that tells us that 
morality cannot be admitted to constitute our right 
to heaven, yet declares that morality is essential to 
constitute our qualification for heaven ; the same 
Book that tells us that we are justified freely through 
the death of Christ Jesus, tells us also that this 
grace " teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly 
21 



242 13 CHRISTIANITY FROM ©OD ? 

lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly m 
this present world." And the man, be he minister 
or be he hearer, who does not adorn, in his life, in 
his practice, in his conduct, in his intercourse in the 
world, the gospel he professes, knows nothing about 
justification by Christ in his heart, whatever he may 
know about it in his head. 

But we contend that this doctrine is pre-eminently 
calculated to produce morality. Man, it is univer- 
sally admitted, is a sinner ; he hates God, and breaks 
his law. Now what does this Book declare to be 
the fulfilling of the law, or the very essence of obe- 
dience ? Love> If I love my queen, it necessarily 
prompts me to be loyal to her ; if I love my parents, 
that sustains filial duty; and if I love my God, I 
have in that love the very essence and element of 
obedience to his commands. " Love is the fulfilling 
of the law/' The question, then, is, Does this doc- 
trine of free acceptance through the blood of Christ, 
produce love in man's heart to God ? If it does, 
obedience is eminently secured. We answer, It does. 
If some individual hated me, and I were to command 
that individual to love me, he would not love me be- 
cause I commanded him ; or if I were to 'promise 
him rank and wealth he would not love me ; or if 
I were to threaten him with all sorts of tortures at 
my service he would not love me. Love, in the 
human heart, cannot be created by threatenings, it 
scorns promises,, and laughs at all commands. How, 
then, am I to make that man love me ? If I were 






DOCTRINAL DIFFICULTIES. 243 

to make some extraordinary sacrifice, risk my prop- 
erty or my life for that man, that would draw him 
irresistibly to forego his hatred and to love me. My 
manifested love to him would create returning love 
to me. Now just so here. God may command, 
threaten, or promise, but the sinner will not love 
Him ; He, therefore, according to what we find to 
be the soundest philosophy, as well as scriptural 
divinity, has evoked our love by the surest process — 
" God so loved the world that He gave His only- 
begotten Son," who came into our world, and died 
upon the cross for us, and now with His pierced 
and outstretched hands He asks, Sinner, sinner, dost 
thou not love Me ? There is in that demonstration 
a power to melt man's hard heart that has been felt 
by millions ; and " we love Him, because He first 
loved us." « 

To produce the intensest love is to secure the 
highest obedience. " Eye-service" will create a par- 
tial obedience, interest will secure a temporary obedi- 
ence, but love will secure perfect and unvaried obedi- 
ence — an obedience that shrinks from no difficulties, 
that pauses at no duties, that overcomes all threats, 
and triumphs over all opposition. Such is the force 
of love. We have heard of a Codrus, whose love to 
his country led him to die for it. We have heard 
of a Romulus, and a Quintus Curtius, who, prompted 
by this mighty impulse, could brave death in its 
most appalling shapes. We have heard of parents, 
who encountered the wild billow and the dread storm 



244 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

to save their children. Love in one cherished to 
another, will accomplish what no principle or power 
can prompt to. In Scotland a peasant woman had 
a child a few weeks old, which was seized by one of 
the golden eagles, the largest in the country, and 
borne away in its talons to its lofty eyrie on one of 
the most inaccessible cliffs of Scotland's bleak hills ; 
the mother, perceiving her loss, hurried in alarm to 
its rescue, and the peasantry, among whom the alarm 
spread, rushed out to her aid ; they all came to the 
foot of the tremendous precipice ; the peasants were 
anxious to risk their lives in order to recover the 
little infant ; but how was the crag to be reached ? 
One peasant tried to climb, but was obliged to re- 
turn ; another tried, and came down injured ; a 
third tried, and one after another failed, till a uni- 
versal feeling of despair and deep sorrow fell upon 
the crowd as they gazed upon the eyrie where the 
infant lay. At last a woman was seen, climbing 
first one part, and then another, getting over one 
rock, and then another ; and while every heart trem- 
bled with alarm, to the amazement of all they saw 
her reach the loftiest crag, and clasp the infant re- 
joicingly in her bosom. This heroic female began to 
descend the perilous steep with the child, moving 
from point to point ; and while every one thought 
that her next step would precipitate her and dash 
her to pieces, they saw her at length reach the 
ground with the child safe in her arms. Who was 
this female? why did she succeed, when others 



DOCTRINAL DIFFICULTIES. 245 

failed? It was the mother of the child. And 
what made her overcome every obstacle? There 
was a tie between that mother's heart and the infant, 
that drew her to its place, and nerved her to brave 
every difficulty, and to succeed where all beside had 
failed. It was love. The fact is a proof of its 
might and its capabilities. Implant love to God in 
the sinner's heart, and it will bind him with fervor 
to His laws, and its possessor will obey all righteous- 
ness, love every holy precept, overcome every diffi- 
culty, and brave all dangers. It is the tie that 
binds him to his Saviour, and draws him irresistibly 
to His service. Are not they the holiest who trust 
least in the merit of their works ? Is not that coun- 
try most moral where justification by faith is pro- 
claimed most freely ? 

It has been alleged by infidels, that Christianity 
as a whole is one great system of priestcraft, and 
gain, and priestly domination. This is one of the 
favorite charges of the more vulgar infidels. We 
are to take our conception of the Christian priest- 
hood, not from what we see in the world, but from 
God's inspired Word. If this Book says, that min- 
isters are to prey on the property of their flocks, or 
to indulge in carnal pleasures, or to be " lords over 
God's heritage," then the objection may be fatal ; 
but if this sacred Book proclaims the very reverse, 
then such objection is, not to Christianity as it is 
found in its recognized standard, but to Christianity 
as it has been diluted and corrupted by man. I 
21* 



240 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOU ? 

look, then, for the delineation of a minister as it is 
drawn in the Word of God. Here it is: — "Flee 
also youthful lusts, but follow righteousness, faith, 
charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out 
of a pure heart ; but foolish and unlearned questions 
avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes, and the 
servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle 
unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness 
instructing those that oppose themselves, if God per- 
adventure will give them repentance to the acknowl- 
edging of the truth." And again ; " A bishop" (and 
the word is used convertibly w r ith " presbyter," the 
two words being synonymous in the usages of the 
New Testament) — " A bishop then must be blame- 
less, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good 
behavior, given to hospitality, apt to teach ; not 
given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre ; 
but patient ; not a brawler, not covetous ; one that 
ruleth well his own house, having his children in 
subjection with all gravity. Moreover he must have 
a good report of them which are without ; lest he 
fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. Like- 
wise must the deacons be grave, not double-tongued, 
not given to much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre ; 
holding the mystery of the faith with a pure con- 
science." These are not descriptions of a system of 
priestcraft ; these verses do not say that Christian 
ministers are to be oreedv and domineering*. 

And if we at this moment survey dispassionately 
all the ministers of the Gospel in Great Britain, they 



DOCTRINAL DIFFICULTIES. 24? 

will be found on the whole a very poor body. It 
has been ascertained, and was asserted, I believe, by 
Lord Brougham, that if you take all the property 
of the Church of England, and cast it into one cof- 
fer, and give every minister of that Church an equal 
share, every one would have about £190 a-year; 
not a very great or exorbitant income. If you take 
the property of the Church of Scotland, and cast it 
into one coffer, and then distribute the whole equally 
among its clergy, every minister in Scotland would 
have about £225 ; so that the Church of Scotland 
is" positively richer than the Church of England, if 
you equalize the distribution of their revenues* And 
if, again, we turn to the Dissenters, we may find a 
few in London with considerable incomes, but the 
great body are inadequately paid. After all, there- 
fore, the clergy, using this word in its widest sense, 
are not found to be so " greedy of filthy lucre," as 
their opponents are fond of alleging. I admit, there 
may exist the most disproportionate distribution, and 
this may be a defect ; there may be individuals greedy 
and covetous — and what association or society is ex* 
empt from such men ? But nevertheless, I maintain 
that the clergy as a whole are not the avaricious 
and overbearing men that calumniating infidels repre- 
sent them to be. I do not mean to assert, that 
ministers of the Gospel may not without sin be rich 
men ; it may be good that some ministers of the 
church should have their thousands a-year ; at least 
it is not liable to the objections supposed to lie 



248 

against it. If a minister is unable to manage wealth 
without ruin to his soul, then it is to be presumed 
that a hearer, who is less versed in the precepts and 
principles of the Gospel, must be still less able. 
Assuredly it seems strange, that the world will al- 
low a layman to have his three or four or five thou- 
sand a-year without complaint, but cry out most 
eloquently of ecclesiastical avarice, if a clergyman 
comes to have as many hundreds. We are not the 
advocates of that stinting economy, which would 
allow the laity to be as rich as mammon can make 
them, but grudge the ministers of Christ their nar- 
rowest income. 

Let me add, that the very men who would keep 
back everything approaching pecuniary competency 
to the clergy, are the men who do not object to ex- 
travagance in other things. They will expend ten 
times as much upon an article of furniture or pleas- 
ure or dress, as they pay for a pew in the house of 
God for twice twelve months ; they will give freely 
as much for a box at the opera for a single night, 
as for a seat at a hundred sermons and services. 
Not a fiftieth part of what is expended on unneces- 
sary luxuries and mere amusements is given to the 
missionary box, or to the cause of Christ. 

And now, in concluding these replies to objections 
urged against Christianity, let me state what in my 
conscience I believe, as well as what in my experience 
I have found to be the cause, I do not say of all, but 
certainly of most men's infidelity ; — their infidelity is 






DOCTRINAL DIFFICULTIES. 240 

the offspring of the heart, not of the head. No jury 
at a trial, no judge examining the merits of a case 
and finding it proved, has such overwhelming evi- 
dence for the verdict of the one, or the sentence of 
the other, as we have for the truth of the Word of 
God. Of all evidence it is the most accumulated 
and powerful ; and the man who rejects the Bible, 
not only shuts his eyes to noon- day brightness, but, 
to be consistent, ought to reject almost everything 
that constitutes the sum of human knowledge, and 
every fact that enters into the world's history. In- 
fidelity, I feel sure, is more in the heart than in the 
head ; the affections, not the faculties, cradle it ; 
sin, not reason, nurses it. And if it thus nestles in 
the heart, thence man cannot remove it. If it ex- 
isted in the head only, reason might be able to over- 
come it ; but if it be intertwined with the heart, 
God's Holy Spirit alone can change the heart, and 
expel its unbelief. I once met with an acute and 
enlightened infidel, with whom I reasoned day after 
day, and for hours together ; I submitted to him 
the internal, the external, and the experimental evi- 
dences, but made no impression on his scorn and un- 
belief. At length I entertained a suspicion that 
there was something morally, rather than intellec- 
tually wrong, and that the bias was not in the intel- 
lect, but in the heart ; one day therefore I said to 
him — " I must now state my conviction, and you 
may call me uncharitable, but duty compels me; 
you are living in some known and gross sin." The 



250 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOO? 

man's countenance became pale ; he bowed and left 
me, and I never again met with him to discuss the 
evidences of Christianity. I afterwards learned that 
what I suspected was the fact ; the man could not 
embrace sin and the Gospel simultaneously, and 
was therefore trying to crush the Gospel, because 
he wished to keep his sin. 

I may mention another instance of an individual, 
whose name is very notorious, and who has been 
long propagating infidelity among the lower ranks 
with fearful success. This miserable man had an 
only daughter lying upon a sick-bed ; his wife, I may 
observe, who had died, was in her life-time a devoted, 
spiritual-minded, and praying Christian. When the 
daughter's death was very near, and all hope of res- 
toration was utterly dissipated, she called her father 
to her bedside, and said — " My mother died a Chris- 
tian some years ago, rejoicing in Jesus, and assured 
of heaven ; you are a disbeliever in Christianity ; I 
am going to make the last venture ; am I to die in 
my mother's faith, or in yours ?" "I beseech you 
to advise me," she said with earnestness and fervor, 
" whether I am to die in my mother's faith, or in 
yours." The father's struggle between affection to 
his only child and the pride of devotedness to his 
principles was tremendous ; but at last, amid a burst 
of tears and in an agony of feeling, the hardened, 
yet melting infidel said,. " Die in your mother's faith." 
And she did die in her mother's faith. And yet the 
man, who gave that advice, lives to propagate infi- 






DOCTRINAL DIFFICULTIES. 251 

delity in the world, and labors with all the energy- 
he has, to make men as contaminated as himself. 

But were the mysteries contained in the Bible 
darker, and the difficulties greater than they are, we 
are not to wait till all are removed before we em- 
brace the Gospel. It is increase of intellectual light 
that reveals beyond it increase of intellectual dark- 
ness ; mysteries multiply with discoveries. The as- 
tronomer does not reject what he knows because 
there is much beyond he cannot see ; he looks upward 
on a star-lit evening, and views with wonder those 
countless altar-fires that burn incense in perpetual 
silence ; he borrows the aid of the telescope, and 
while it increases the range and clearness of his 
vision, it discloses greater and more inpenetrable 
clusters of worlds beyond ; dim and distant spots of 
light are seen to be solar systems, revolving around 
a central sun, and that central sun with his revolving 
systems but another cluster rolling around another 
central sun ; — and this is but a faint view of the thin 
suburbs of the heavenly Jerusalem, — a dim sight of 
the mere sentinels and outposts of that innumerable 
host spread aud grouped in the fields of immensity. 
Let us embrace the gospel heartily — the known, and 
wait patiently for the unknown ; let us not lose 
saving truth in prying into hidden mysteries ; let us 
not spend time in inquisitive speculations, and peril 
eternity by rejecting or neglecting great vital doc- 
trines. 

Thousands feel and witness there is revealed more 



252 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

than enough io save them ; Christianity has done for 
them what nothing else could do ; it has regained 
Paradise for them, and fitted them for Paradise ; it 
has spread over them the peace of God ; it has erected 
in their conscience the sceptre of righteousness and 
the standard of truth. 

Nothing can bring a soul to God but a religion 
that came from God. A lie never regenerated a 
soul or sanctified a heart. The greatest mystery in 
the Bible carries in it a saving truth ; accept the 
mystery, not as saving you, but as containing the 
truth that saves you, — not as the healing and restor- 
ative wine, but as the cup that contains it. Try not 
to separate. You cannot throw away the mystery 
without throwing away the truth it contains. 



CHAPTER XI. 



TEXTS CAVILLED AT. 



Genesis vi. 6, " It repented the Lord that he had 
made man." — God the unchangeable cannot repent, 
— that is, alter his mind from the occurrence of un- 
foreseen events. This language must be figurative, 
and meant for our capacity, because the same Book 
declares, " God is not the son of man that he should 
repent." God takes his stand within the limits of 
humanity, and makes use, not only of its language, 
but of its feelings also. Thus he asks, " How shall 
I give thee up, Ephraim ? how shall I deliver thee, 
Israel ? mine heart is turned within me ; my repent- 
ings are kindled together." These are the adaptations 
of heavenly things to human capacities, — great truths 
darkened by the medium through which they must 
pass, in order to suit our weak sight. These, too, 
were perhaps rough drafts of the incarnation, — an- 
thropomorphic appearances of Deity, — to prepare 
men's minds for God manifest in the flesh. The 
complex ritual of the Jews too, — its minute prescrip- 
tions about the killing and offering of animals, — 
have been objected to as unworthy of God. Is it 
not the fact, that in a tree, a flower, a pebble, there 



254 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

are innumerable minute fibres, grains, or crystals, 
which seem to us to have been uncalled for ? In 
insects, fishes, and birds, is there not what seems 
needless variety, division, and sub- division ? In 
short, is there not evidence of the same presence in 
the works of creation and in the laws of Levi ? Are 
not acts of parliament, decisions of judges, definitions 
of crime, excessively and wearisomely minute ? But 
all these Levitical laws were partly to serve as a 
perpetual hedge to preserve the Jews from the uni- 
versal, contiguous, and imminent idolatry, and to 
prefigure Him for whose advent they were taught to 
wait and pray. Their burdensomeness was perhaps 
appointed of God to lead the Jews to long for a de- 
liverer. 

Ps. cxl. 10 ; Ps. cxxix. 6 ; Ps. cxliii. 12 ; Ps. lviii ; 
Ps. lix. — These are instances of what are called im- 
precations in Scripture. I might show that some 
of these expressions might be rendered with equal 
correctness predictions of what shall be. But I take 
the severest sense, and in this lio-ht I hesitate not to 
say they are right. David wrote these, not as a 
private man venting his personal feelings, but as a 
judge pronouncing what God had authorized. Their 
crimes justly deserved these penalties, and David, as 
the mouthpiece of God, faithfully pronounced them. 
We find the heathen writers frequently imprecating 
vengeance on public infamy, and those very persons 
who object to those judgments in the word of God 
— so easily vindicated — are not the last to invoke 



TEXTS CAVILLED AT. 255 

judgments on the heads of those against whom they 
have private animosity. 

Jer. xvii. 9, "The heart is deceitful above all 
things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?" 
— Many have alleged that this is an exaggerated and 
over- colored charge — that we are not such as we are 
here described to be. Now it is very remarkable 
that heathen writers use language yet stronger, in 
the same direction. "As soon as we are born," 
says Cicero, (Tusc. Quest, iii. 2,) " and receive the 
care of our parents, we engage in all kinds of de- 
pravity, so much that we seem to suck in error 
almost with our nurse's milk." Horace (Sat. i. 3) 
says, " No one is born without iniquities." (Yitiis.) 
Propertius writes, ii. 22, "Nature has given man his 
wickedness." Our own experience is perhaps the 
best commentary on the words of Jeremiah ; Chris- 
tians admit it — feel it. If it be said it is the example 
of others, not a taint in the nature, whence, I ask, 
came that example ? A was corrupted by the ex- 
ample of B, and B by C, but whose example cor- 
rupted the first of the series, whose only example 
was himself? 

Matt. vii. 13, 14, "Wide is the gate and broad is 
the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there 
be that go in thereat ; because strait is the gate and 
narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few 
there be that find it." — This has been thought an 
over-severe estimate, but its accuracy is matter of 



256 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

fact, and is confirmed by heathen observers. Horace 
(Sat. i. 4) writes,— 

"Take me a man at venture from the crowd, 
And he's ambitious, covetous, or proud." 

Juvenal (Sat. xiii. 26),— 

" Rare are the good ; more scarce their number seems 
Than Thebes' famed gates, or Nile's disparted streams ; 
Worse than the iron is the present race ; 
Nature with our corruptions keeps no pace ; 
Her plastic skill can no vile metal frame 
That's base enough to give the age a name." 

Homer (Odyssey ii. 276) — "Few sons are like the 
father, the majority are worse, few are better/' 
These, the testimonies of observant nature, proclaim 
the truth of the picture sketched in revelation. We 
know the word of God contains no exaggerations, 
but it may silence the caviller if we show that the 
experience of mankind undesignedly confirms the 
testimonies of the Word of God. 

John v. 40, "Ye will not come to Me that ye 
may have life ;" Ezek. xviii. 31, "Why will ye die?" 
Why, it has been asked, does God not do what He 
seerns in these and similar texts so desirous of doino* ? 
Is He not omnipotent ? Can He not save all, with- 
out exception? God does not extinguish human 
nature, in order to destroy its sinfulness. Were He, 
in the exercise of omnipotent power, to save man- 
kind, or drag them to heaven against their wills, and 
in spite of their protests and preferences, He would 






TEXTS CAVILLED AT. 25? 

treat men as dead machines, or as irrational and irre- 
sponsible creatures. God reverences, if we may so 
speak, the noblest workmanship of his hands. He 
will not drive by force. He draws with cords of 
love, and with bands of a man. " Behold, I stand 
at the door and knock ; if any man will open, I will 
come in and sup with him and he with me." Rather 
than do violence to the freedom and responsibility 
of man, he will wait outside, a suppliant for admis- 
sion. He will conciliate where he might coerce and 
command. But if the God of Grace is blamed for 
not accomplishing by force what He desires to do by 
motives, hopes, and menaced penalties, may not the 
God of Providence be equally complained of? Why 
has He erected in man's bosom a beseeching, alarm- 
ing, threatening, and promising power called con- 
science, leaving those that disregard it to suffer, and 
giving to those that listen to it peace, instead of 
directly compelling men to be holy and therefore 
happy? If God's unsuccessful appeals to man 
through the medium of revelation disprove either 
the benevolence or power of the God of Christianity, 
then God's unsuccessful appeals through the medium 
of conscience must disprove the benevolence or power 
of the God of Nature and Providence. Grace and 
Providence are streams from the same fountain. 
There is no objection to the one that does not lie 
against the other also. The rejecter of the former 
must^ to be consistent, reject the latter also, and 
22* 



258 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD J 

thus plunge into the most revolting of all inconsis- 
tencies, Atheism itself. 

Matt. v. 28, " Whosoever looketh on a woman to 
lust after her hath committed adultery with her al- 
ready in his heart," — This has been pronounced 
severe morality ; yet there are testimonies from the 
writings of the highest heathen moralists that show 
that man, in his best moments, feels it to be just and 
true. 

Seneca writes : " The vestal virgin, who desires to 
commit fornication, is guilty, even though she com- 
mit it not," Cicero writes: "A good man will not 
only not dare to do, but he will not even dare to 
think, what he cannot speak of in public." Juvenal 
writes :— 

11 Thus but intended mischief stayed in time, 
Has all the moral guilt of finished crime." 

These, and kindred sentiments in heathen writers, 
are fragments of our aboriginal purity in Paradise, 
and show that the conscience of humanity, even its 
wreck, emits at times attestations to the truth of 
God's word. 

Matt. x. 34, "Think not that I am come to send 
peace on earth ; I come not to send peace, but a 
sword." — Startling expressions like this prove rather 
the reality and truth of Scripture. Impostors de- 
sirous of popularity and progress, would not have 
hazarded statements so likely to injure a present 
popularity, the only object of their efforts. Does 



TEXTS CAVILLED AT. 259 

it however contradict those passages that announce 
the Saviour as the Prince of Peace ? — that declare 
one of the essential elements of his kingdom to be 
peace ? We answer, No. The Gospel may be the 
occasion of war, but in itself it is the cause of peace. 
Its holiness coming into collision with men's sins — 
its denunciations of iniquity falling on those that 
love it — its rebuke of the most plausible hypocrisy, 
and its recognition of the least heartfelt desire " to 
do justly and love mercy" — its enshrining the least 
seed of truth, and indifference to the largest husk 
of ceremony, are calculated as soon as introduced 
into a fallen world, to rouse the resistance of wicked 
men. But such resistance is not the fruit of Chris- 
tianity, but of corrupt human nature, hating and 
seeking to repel the approach of truth. Does not 
every attempt to enfranchise the enslaved, to vindi- 
cate the oppressed, create around it and in its train 
the same opposition ? Have not the greatest bene- 
factors of the world been obliged, as they dared, to 
despise the opposition because they loved the happi- 
ness of mankind ? The world's scorn was aroused 
by their lofty contrast to the world's selfishness ; 
and that scorn was an augury of their future 
success. 

Prejudices that have struck their roots into the 
heart of nations, and twined their fibres around the 
habits and associations of men, are not easily or 
gently uprooted. What are all the collisions of so- 
ciety but the results of evil rising to put down 



260 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

righteousness, and of righteousness rising to put 
down oppression and injustice ? Were the introduc- 
tion of the Gospel followed by no opposition, there 
would be wanting one of the highest indications of 
its heavenly origin. While it is true that the " world 
lieth in wickedness," and "the carnal heart is enmity 
to God," so long the truth will not want a shadow, 
nor holiness an opponent. 

Luke xiv. 26, "If any any man come to me, and 
bate not his father and mother, and w T ife, and chil- 
dren, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own 
life also, he cannot be my disciple." — This has been 
quoted as a specimen of a severe and cynic morality. 
It is plain the Scripture invariably enjoins love from 
man to man, and still more love from child to parent. 
This runs through all revelation ; of this there can 
be no reasonable doubt. It is therefore the right 
way to interpret the solitary, seemingly contradictory 
text, by the many plain and obvious ones. The 
word " hate" is used in Scripture comparatively with 
love. Thus it is stated, in Gen. xxix. 31, "When 
the Lord saw that Leah was hated;" but this is ex- 
plained in the preceding verse, (ver. 30,) " he loved 
Rachel more than Leah ;" — "hated," in verse 31, is 
the " less loved" in verse 30. So, " If any man hate 
not his father," &c, must mean, " If any man love 
his father above me, serve, or sacrifice, or suffer for 
an earthly relationship more than for me." 

In the Gospel of St. Matthew, however, we have 
the parallel passage, and the meaning of this thereby 



TEXTS CAVILLED AT. 261 

fixed, (Matt. x. 37): "He that loveth father or 
mother more than me is not worthy of me." It is 
not uncommon to find a relative obligation couched 
in absolute terms ; thus : " Set your affections on 
things above, not on things on the earth ;" that is — 
love things on earth in subordination to things in 
heaven. 

Such phraseology, however, is not peculiar to the 
Bible, it occurs in heathen writers : — 

Cicero De Officiis iii. 5, " To despise pleasures, 
riches, and even life itself, and to regard them as 
nothing when they come to be compared with the 
public interest, is the duty of a brave and heroic 
spirit. " 

Tyrtseus, Ode iv. 13 — 18, "Let us fight with 
spirit for our . country and our children, no longer 
sparing our souls;" iii. 3, "counting his soul as 
odious, but death dear as the sun." 

Thus the language of the sacred penman is not 
without precedent, and therefore any opposition to 
it, because of its form, cannot stop there. 

James ii. 10, "He that offendeth in one point is 
guilty of all." — This has been asserted as hyper-rigid 
morality ; yet it is not really so. If a man steal, he 
is laid hold on by the law of the land, and punished 
as guilty. The law does not connive at his conduct 
till he has murdered, and forged, and libelled. It 
regards one crime as a violation of it, and holds the 
criminal guilty. To be guilty of murder, it is not 
required that the crime be committed in all the 



262 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

forms in which it is possible to do so : the extinction 
of the life of another in revenge, or for plunder, is 
equally murder. The apostle explains the reason 
when he adds, "for He that said, Do not commit 
adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now, if thou com- 
mit no adultery, yet, if thou kill, thou art become a 
transgressor of the law." 

Rom. v. 9, "Justified by Christ/' 

Rom. v. 1, "Justified by faith." 

James ii. 24, " By works a man is justified." — 
These seem contradictory each to the other ; but 
they are not so. We are justified by Christ merito- 
riously ; by faith, instrumentally ; by works, declara- 
tively. Christ's righteousness is the ground and 
title of our admission to the hopes and certainty of 
happiness. Faith is the instrument, or hand, by 
which we lay hold on that title, as the hand of a 
drowning man grasps the rope flung out to him. A 
holy life is the visible evidence of that state of ac- 
ceptance which invariably gives birth to all the fruits 
of the Spirit. 

Gen. ii. 2, "And on the seventh day God ended 
his work, and he rested on the seventh day from all 
his work which he had made." 

John v. 17, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I 
work." 

There is no contradiction between these texts. 
The one refers to creation, and the other to provi- 
dence. The former describes God's completion of 
the successive strata and races consummated by man ; 



TEXTS CAVILLED AT. 263 

the latter denotes God's preserving, regulating, and 
maintaining all things animate and inanimate. 

Acts vis. 48, "" The Most High dwelleth not in 
temples made with hands." 

Exod. xxv. 8, "Let them make me a sanctuary 
that I may dwell among them/' 

The former text describes the majesty of God, the 
latter his grace. The one is his absolute dwelling, 
** light, inaccessible, and full of glory ;" the other is 
his special and gracious presence, " wheresoever two 
or three are met together in My name, there am I m 
the midst of them." 

Eph, v. 29, " No man ever yet feated his own flesh." 
Matt. v. 2*9, " If tliy right eye offend thee, pluck it 
out." — The first text is literally tra-e ; it is human 
nature, and every man's experience responds to it : 
the second is obviously figurative, and denotes that 
sins as dear from preference, and as near from asso- 
ciation, as a right eye, must be renounced and put 
away at any sacrifice or pain, 

Luke h 33^ "Of his kingdom there shall be \\a 
end." 1 Cor. xv. 24, "Then eometh the end when 
he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God." — 
The first text refers to. that kingdom which is right- 
eousness and peace and joy : of this there shall be n@ 
end. The seeond test relates to the mode of admin- 
istering his kingdom, which mode will cease when all 
the objects of his love have been gathered into the 
region of the full enjoyment of it 

I give these as specimens merely of what are de« 



264 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

nounced as contradictions. All the seeming contra- 
dictions of Scripture can be easily and satisfactorily 
explained. The harmony that really exists under 
the discrepancy that appears, is only additional proof 
of the reality and truthfulness of the Scriptures. 
When Moses saw an Egyptian fighting with an 
Israelite and trying to destroy him, he slew the 
Egyptian and let the Israelite go." When he saw 
an Israelite fighting with an Israelite, he separated 
them and made them friends. Even so, when we 
see an error assaulting or overlaying a truth, let us 
destroy the error and emancipate the truth; but 
when we see a truth seemingly in conflict with a 
truth, let us reconcile them, and show them thus 
reconciled to all. 



CHAPTER XII. 

CONCLUSION. 

"For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of 
man as the flower of the grass. The grass wither- 
eth, and the flower thereof fadeth away, but the 
word of the Lord endureth forever. And this is the 
word which by the Gospel is preached unto you." 
These, the words of St. Peter, are not the original. 
They are only the echo. Isaiah had uttered them 
before him. The first half of the sentence is the un- 
tiring chant of nature, the last the unchanging voice 
of God. The peasant looks on his fields, and the 
pent-up citizen on his sickly plant in its solitary 
flower-pot, and both feel, " the grass withereth, and 
the flower thereof fadeth away." On the other 
hand, the humblest believer on earth and the high- 
est saint beside God's throne alike proclaim, " the 
word of God endureth forever." The wind that 
sighs as it sweeps through the trees of the forest in 
fitful and freezing gusts — the showers of dead leaves 
that fall at their roots — and the naked skeleton 
branches that shiver in the blast, are the solemn 
and pathetic trumpets that convey to the listening 
ear the dirge of things seen — " the grass withereth." 

David gave utterance to this truth in his days, 
<f As for man, his davs are as grass, as a flower of 



266 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

the field so he flourisheth, for the wind passeth over 
it and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it 
no more." Nearly three hundred years after David, 
Isaiah proclaimed the same analogy, "All flesh is 
grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower 
of the field — the grass withereth, the flower fadeth :" 
and seven hundred years subsequent to Isaiah, Pe- 
ter records the same sentiment in nearly the same 
words. The outward laws and movements of nature 
thus continue from the beginning. The same sun 
that shone on Abel and Noah and Abraham shines 
on us. These same stars that sparkle over our 
houses, looked upon the fall and the flood, on Mara- 
thon and Thermopylae, Waterloo, Nineveh, Constan- 
tinople, and London, on Noah and Napoleon. The 
grass grew and withered under the footsteps of Ja- 
cob as under ours ; "all things continue as they 
were from the beginning of the creation." But this, 
instead of beinor ground of atheistic presumption, is 
really evidence of the unchangeableness of God. 

One lesson taught us in these words is the truth 
and reality of a brotherhood between us and flowers 
and trees, between the green things that wither, and 
the bright and beautiful ones that die. The dead 
violet is the fragrant memorial of the infant that 
drooped and died— the still unscattered dust of the 
flower that fades in June brings to our remembrance 
the fair form that was suddenly breathed on by some 
mysterious emissary, and passed away in her noon. 
Another falls from the tree of life like that sere leaf. 
In the woods in winter we cannot be lon^ alone ; 



CONCLUSION. 267 

visions and associations will gather around us — de- 
parted forms and almost forgotten faces will rise like 
thin shadows from the grave, and almost forgotten 
faces will come forth from the past, and bear witness 
to the words which, like monumental inscriptions on 
the pavement, the feet of traffic are continually de- 
facing, but which the sweep of years renders again 
clear and legible. " All flesh is as grass ; the grass 
withe re th and the flower fadeth." 

Mortality is the universal attribute. Man has his 
autumn as well as buds or flowers, and the same 
casualties too ; a frost nips the flowers — a worm 
gnaws the root of the grass, or a blight falls on it 
from the air, and it withers. The great majority of 
the human family perishes in the mid-time of its 
days, and though some sheltered plant may retain 
its beauty and its fragrance amid the wreck of its 
faded sisterhood, it also must droop and die. God 
has written it, and no prescriptions or balms or care 
can reverse it, "All flesh is as grass ; the grass with- 
ereth ;" and lest it should be supposed that aristocra- 
cy and wealth and beauty may possibly be exempted 
from the common lot, it is added, " And the flower," 
that is, the chief portions of humanity, "fadeth." 

But the universal fact of death is not the only 
lesson taught by the withering grass. It seems to 
teach us also how to die. The productions of nature 
die as if they felt full confidence in Him that made 
and summons them. The leaf drops gently from 
the tree without a murmur — the flower welcomes 
the death-frost as a messenger from its Maker, bows 



268 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

its head upon its stalk, and yields its richest perfume 
as it dies. From the heath-bell on the common to 
the oak in the forest, all die softly; God says to 
each, '-'Return," and they answer in music, "We 
return." Why should not Christians equally trust? 
Why should not they yield themselves as gently and 
willingly to God ? Does God care for flowers and 
grass ? " Are not we much better than they ?" 

Nature also, as she dies, looks most beautiful. 
The trees in autumn seem to put on their corona- 
tion robes. Their leaves assume their most gor- 
geous tints; and when all these leaves fall in the 
forest, it is only to remove the intercepting screen, 
and let the sunbeam and starlight shine with unob- 
structed effulgence. May not our sun be fairest at 
setting? May not we, like flowers and trees, go 
down to the grave in joy ? May not we, like Sim- 
eon, depart in peace ? Should not our death be an 
euthanasia ? Death is but the removal of the broad 
shadow of mortality, the emancipation of the spirit, 
— the porch of life, — the vestibule of glory. These 
reflections, however, all assume that this life is not 
our all. Were there no destiny beyond it, within 
the reach of all that will, man's lot would be worse 
a thousandfold than that of the dumb universe 
around him ; and if there be a life beyond this, the 
nature of which is contingent on what we become in 
the present, how great is the folly of that man who 
fits himself for every office upon earth, but takes no 
thought and makes no preparation for eternity ; 
who strives to be everything except a Christian; 



CONCLUSION. 269 

who cares much about many things, but nothing 
about his soul ! 

All that man admires and pursues on earth, never- 
theless, must perish as the grass, and as the flower 
of the grass, Is it personal beauty we glory in? 
It has all the prominence, but all the evanescence 
also, of " the flower of the grass." Like the bloom 
on a plum or peach, touch it, and it is gone ! Is it 
intellectual wisdom ? Is not the wisdom of yester- 
day the folly of to-day ? Have not theories, once 
deemed perfect, canonized by infallible Popes and 
sung by great poets, been afterwards dismissed as 
puerile, or rejected as untrue? If future centuries 
are yet to follow that which is already half-spent, 
they may look back on our railroads, and steamers, 
and electric telegraphs, and laws, and literature, and 
pity or smile amid their more brilliant discoveries, 
and repeat then as we do now, " The grass withereth 
and the flower fadeth." 

Is it the productions of genius that we cherish? 
Where are the wonders of our Athenian pencil? 
Where are the all but living creations of the Corin- 
thian chisel ? Where are the Gates of Thebes — the 
Temple of Diana — the columns of the Parthenon, 
the Pantheon ? 

Is it wealth in which we trust ? Of all earthly 
possessions it is the most precarious. In all its 
shapes, and formulas, and representatives, it perishes. 
It melts in our hands ; we spend it most profusely 
in youth, when it would be most desirable to save it, 
and we hoard it most penuriously in old age, just 



270 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

when we must be taken from it. It is liable to take 
wings and flee away. Kingdoms, empires, colleges, 
fortunes, daily fade like the flower. The crash of 
one throne mingles with the echoes of a former ; and 
the debris of one party forms the foundation of an- 
other. Our ships founder at sea, and rich argosies 
perish ; our splendid mansions and public edifices are 
consumed by the flame that revels amid their glory, 
and leaves behind but its black foot-prints to tell the 
tidings of its havoc. Your health withers as the 
grass, and your renown as "the flower of the grass." 

Languages change, ceremonies vary, sacraments 
are temporary ; Sabbaths exist like little ponds, till, 
the ocean of eternity overflows them ; prayer con- 
tinues only while there are wants, and a ministry 
while there is ignorance ; but around this dissolving 
world one thing abides — the Word of the Lord en- 
dureth for ever. 

Aggressions have only served to vindicate its truth, 
and reveal its lustre. The theories of former geolo- 
gists have withered like the grass, Genesis endureth 
forever. The garnets of Falhun, the crystals of the 
Alps, emeralds from Brazil, spars from Derbyshire, 
and rubies from Ceylon, all cast illustrative light on 
the Word of the Lord. 

The theories of speculative minds, the badges 
of sects, the shibboleths of parties, the opinions of 
schoolmen, and the decrees of synods, have withered 
like the grass ; but " the Word of the Lord endureth 
forever;" and "this is the word which by the 
gospel is preached unto you." What? Let us 



CONCLUSION- 271 

read, "The soul that sins shall die;" " the wages 
of sin is death." These propositions are as true 
to-day as they were five thousand years ago. Sin 
and suffering are cause and effect. Penalty follows 
crime here and hereafter ; God says so. It is in vain 
that any attempt, practically or speculatively, to dis- 
prove the connection. The last fire shall not dissolve 
or exhaust it. Let us not shut our eyes to it, and 
try to reason ourselves into a disbelief of its reality. 
2. " All have sinned ;" " there is none righteous, 
no not one ;" " God hath concluded (shut up) all 
under sin." This also endureth forever. They 
that are saints in heaven were once sinners upon 
earth. All now on earth are shut up in this con- 
demnation ; there is no exception ; we who read 
these lines are inmates of this great prison. We 
fancy there is no prison because we do not see the 
bars, and chains, and locks, and each seems to do as 
he pleases. But this is Satan's delusion ; he wishes 
you to think you are free, while you are in chains — 
that you see while you are blind, and are the inmates 
of a palace though in reality captives in a prison. 
It is of no use to oppose this truth ; it is neither the 
withering grass nor the fading flower, but the " Word 
of the Lord which endureth forever." They alone 
whose eyes have been opened, and who have been 
emancipated by the Spirit of God, now see that the 
iron had entered into their souls, and that the soph- 
isms of Satan, and the suggestions of flesh and blood 
were but the intoxicating drugs that stupefied their 
sense of the reality of their state. 



272 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD? 

3. " Christ died for our sins." " This is a faithful 

saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ 
Jesus came into the world to save sinners. " " God 
hath made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, 
that we might be made the righteousness of God." 
K God so loved the world that He gave His only- 
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him might 
not perish, but have eternal life." 

This is the word we preach, neither spent in its 
descent from heaven, nor wasted in its transmission 
through ages ; fresh, and beautiful, and holy as at 
first ; repeated every Sabbath, read in every Bible — 
the eloquence of many thousand pulpits, and the 
music of many tongues. It is heaven's jubilee, 
sounding in the cells of the great prison ; it is the 
light of eternal day, shining through its gratings; 
Christ crucified is the commencement, the core, and 
the coronal of Christianity. The Gospel is not a 
mere directory, or a loftier law than Sinai's, but a 
medicine, a system of restoration ; and the great and 
only medium of that restoration is the vicarious death 
and atoning sacrifice of the Son of God. This truth 
endures forever ; it is enshrined in glory. The Lamb 
is seen amid the splendor of the throne ; " God man- 
ifest in the flesh," is the peculiarity, the glory, the 
substance of the Gospel. 

" This is life eternal, to know Thee the only true 
God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." 
Other knowledge may be ornamental, but this is 
essential — vital. All other wisdom may wither as 
the grass, but this endureth forever. All else may 



CONCLUSION. 213 

be " meat and drink/ ' or form or ceremony : but 
this is " righteousness, peace, joy in the Holy Ghost." 
4. " Except a man be born again, he cannot see 
the kingdom of heaven." This, too, is an eternal 
truth — an irreversible decision. It admits of no ex- 
ception ; no priveieges exempt from it ; kings and 
subjects must equally undergo it before they can 
enter the kingdom of heaven. Nor is this a super- 
ficial or mere extrinsic change ; it is not the surrender 
of one theoiy at the bidding of another ; nor is it the 
expulsion from the mind of one system of opinions 
to make way for the introduction of another ; it is 
not becoming a Calvinist, or an Arminian, or an 
Episcopalian, or a Presbyterian. It is being made a 
new creature, an anointed Christian — " turned from 
darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to 
God." It is " a new heart ;" it is life within and 
light without. The experience of this change is the 
highest evidence in the subject of it, that Christian- 
ity is from God. He sees and feels, and therefore 
believes. He has seen enough — a Saviour's blood, 
and a Saviour's cross. He sees heaven prepared for 
him, and feels his heart prepared for it. A lie can- 
not do this ; a falsehood has no power to create a 
moral revolution. He has a new object of worship ; 
no longer vain-glory, riches, self ; but God ; and this 
not the absolute God, but God in Christ a Father ; 
a new object of pursuit ; not what to eat and drink ; 
nor the care of self, or the concerns of earth, but the 
glory of God : whether " he eats or drinks, or what- 
soever he does, he does all to the glory of God." 



274 ZS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOB? 

5. " Come unto Me, all ye that are weary and 
heavy laden, and I wfil give you rest.'* "Look 
unto Me all ends of the earth, and be ye saved/* 
" Come, let us reason together ; though your sins 
be as scarlet they shall be white as snow, though 
they be red like crimson they shall be as wool." 
" The Spirit and the Bride say, Come, and let him 
that is athirst come, and take ©f the water of life 
freely/' 

Such is the free and unrestricted invitation of God 
to all the purchased and promised blessings of the 
gospel. There is not a responsible creature on the 
frozen ledges of Greenland or on the scorched and 
burning sands of Sierra Leone, to whom we are not 
commissioned to address these words. The great 
complaint of the waiting Saviour is not that too 
many or too great sinners come to Him. It is, " Ye 
will not come to Me that ye may have life." No 
one need wait for what will not be, — -greater worthi- 
ness before he close with the offers of the Saviour — 
3tor need any wait for deeper conviction of sin ; for 
it is not the degree but the fact of conviction Christ 
meets and ministers to. The everlasting arms are 
bow outstretched. God's mercy will never be ampler 
— nor the blood of Jesus more efficacious — nor the 
gates of heaven wider — nor the way of life smoother. 
Our responsibilities deepen and multiply every day. 
The hour of mercy is not a fixture, and long as a 
thousand years, but perpetually on the wing. Each 
of us has his day. How dreadful must be the retro- 
spect from a judgment-scat,, with nothing but tram- 



CONCLUSION. 275 

pled privileges for it to fix on ! — how terrible to re- 
member that from the cradle to the grave the voice 
of mercy was addressed to us in vain ! — how over- 
whelming to hear the " Depart ye," that we must 
obey, uttered by the same lips which so often cried, 
" Come ye," and which we would not obey ! 

How deep a hell must their prison be, who scorned 
the beseeching voice and the atoning blood of the 
Son of God ! 

Our sun is not yet set, nor our privileges per- 
ished. The word of the Lord endures, and we hear 
it ; how long we shall be spared to hear it God only 
knows, for we know not what a day may bring forth. 
Whatever opposes this word must perish, whatever 
contends against it must be crushed. Infidelity— the 
word of man — however musical its utterances, will 
be hushed — its airy frost-work, however glittering 
in the sunbeams, will be dissolved. It is a system 
of negations — it has no nutriment for man's soul. 
It has the withering without the reality of the grass. 
The Bible, it will yet see, is not a fiction^-nor real 
religion fanaticism — nor anxiety about the soul mad- 
ness — nor adherence to vital truth bigotry. Super- 
stition, too, in all its shapes, will be dissipated. It 
comes from beneath, and it returns again to its level. 
No patronage can prevent it, no persecution shield 
it ; but God's word will endure forever. This gos- 
pel is divine in its birth, and eternal in its destiny. 
Christianity enunciates truths that are above the 
tide-mark of time, and rooted in the attributes of 
God. It cannot be extinguished, for God is its light 



276 IS CHRISTIANITY FROM GOD ? 

— it cannot die, for God is its life. Perfect holiness 
is of itself perpetuity. It is the answer to our most 
anxious inquiries, the solution of our greatest per- 
plexities. It appeals to what is deepest and dearest 
in the heart of humanity, and therefore every regen- 
erated heart is ready to protest against every attempt 
to rob us of jewels of inestimable price. 

Even in this world, humility is triumphing over 
pride, and love over hatred, and gentleness over 
wrath, and these alone are auguries of what must be. 

-Truth crushed to earth will rise again, 
The eternal years of God are hers : 
But error wounded writhes with pain, 
And dies amid her worshippers." 

Ancient dynasties may fall, and popular govern- 
ments explode, but Christ " shall reign over the 
house of David forever, and of his kingdom there 
shall be no end." 

Thrones may totter, and powerful sceptres be 
shivered, but "thy throne, God, is forever and 
ever." 

We need no more fear that the Sun of Righteous- 
ness will set in clouds, than that the burning centre 
of our system shall fall from his socket. Christian- 
ity will appear most beautiful when marble statues 
are defaced, and monuments of bronze are blended 
with the dust. Eternity itself will attest how per- 
ishing is all that man calls beautiful or great, and 
how lasting is all which God pronounces true. 

Christianity is from God ! 



OATALCffI?B 

OP 

VALUABLE PUBLICATIONS, 

ISSUED BY M. W. DODD, 

PUBLISHER AND BOOKSELLER, 

ffior. ©ft» SJall Square atttr Spruce St. 

(OPPOSITE CITY HALL, HEW YORK.) 



CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH'S WORKS, 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION 

BY MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 

2 Volumes, Octavo. 

CONTAINING PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR ON STEEL, 

WITH SEVERAL OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS, 

ENGRAVED EXPRESSLY FOR THE WORK. 

The Publisher invites the attention of the public to this new Edition 
of one of the most popular and useful writers of the present age. 

It contains, in the compass of nearly 1700 large octavo pages, all the 
productions, in Prose and Poetry, of this admirable authoress, suited to 
a Standard Edition of her Works. Several of these were furnished in 
manuscript for this edition by Mrs. Tonna, which has her express en- 
dorsement, and is the only one in this country from which she has de- 
rived any pecuniary benefit. 

To give additional value to the work by illustrating and embellishing 
it, we have, at considerable expense, added to it several Engravings 
from Steele, got up expressly for this purpose. It is believed few works 
can be found surpassing these in value for family reading. They com- 
bine, to an unusual degree, an elevated moral tone, with reading attrac- 
tive to both old and young. And for the requisites of beauty, cheapness, 
and legibility combined, this edition of Charlotte Elizabeth's works is 
not excelled by anything in the market. 

The last edition contains her Memoir by her husband, designed to be 
a Sivplcment to Personal Recollections, and embracing the period from 
the close of her Personal Recollections to her death. Also, " War with 
the Saints ; or, Count Raymond of Toulouse," — the work she finished 
almost simultaneously with her earthly career. 

1 



OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 

M Charlotte Elizabeth's Works have become so univer- 
sally known, and are so highly and deservedly appreciated 
in this country, that it has become almost superfluous to 
praise them. We doubt exceedingly whether there has 
been any female writer since Hannah More, whose works 
are likely to be so extensively read and so profitably read 
as hers " She thinks deeply and accurately, is a great an- 
alyst of the human heart, and withal clothes her ideas in 
most appropriate and eloquent language. The present 
edition, unlike any of its predecessors in this country, is 
in octavo form, and makes a fine substantial book, which, 
both in respect to the outer and inner, will be an ornament 
to any library." — Albany Argus. 

" These productions constitute a bright relief to the 
bad and corrupting literature in which our age is so 
prolific, full of practical instruction, illustrative of the 
beauty of Protestant Christianity, and not the less abound- 
ing in entertaining description and narrative." — Journal 
of Commerce. 

" In justice to the publisher and to the public, we add 
that this edition of Charlotte Elizabeth's Works will form 
a valuable acquisition to the Christian and Family Libra- 
ry." — Christian Observer. 

M We experience a sense of relief in turning from the 
countless small volumes, though neat and often ornate, 
that the press is constantly throwing in our way, to a 
bold, substantial-looking octavo of 850 pages, in plain 
black dress, with a bright, cheerful countenance, such as 
the volumes before us. Of the literary characteristics of 
Charlotte Elizabeth we have had frequent occasion to 
speak. Her merits and defects are too well known to 
need recapitulation here." — Newark Daily Advertiser. 

This third volume completes this elegant octavo edition 
of the works of this popular and useful author. The 
works themselves are so well known as not to need com- 
mendation. The edition we are disposed to speak well 
of. It is in clear type, on fine paper, and makes a beauti- 
ful series. It is, moreover, very cheap." — New York 
Evangelist. 



WE ALSO PUBLISH THE FOLLOWING OF CHARLOTTE ELIk 
ABETH'S WORKS, IN UNIFORM, NEAT 18mO. VOLS., 
VARYING FROM 25 TO 50 CENTS PER VOL 
2 



Books Published and for Sale by M. W. Dodd, 



LIFE OF CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH. 

iGmo. 

With a new and accurate Portrait, finely engraved on steel, expressly 

for tlus volume* 
" We doubt if the lives of many females are blended with 
more incidents and richer lessons of instruction and wisdom^ 
than the life of Charlotte Elizabeth. It will be found as cap- 
tivating as any romance, and will leave on the mind a lasting 
impression for good. Mr. Dodd's edition before us, is certainly 
a very beautiful one, and we hope will commend itself to many 
readers. Over three hundred pages of the work are occupied 
witli Charlotte Elisabeth's Personal Recollections. Mr. Tonna 
has added Explanatory Notes, and a Memoir, embracing the 
period from the close of her Personal Recollections to her death, 
It is embellished with a finely executed portrait t*f Charlotte 
Elizabeth, which is said to be an excellent likeness of its la- 
mented original" — Albany Spectator. 

i: Mr. Dodd of New York has published, in a handsome vol- 
ume, the Personal Recollections of Charlotte Elizabeth, accom- 
panied by a Memoir, embracing the period from the close of 
the work just named to the time of her death, thus giving a 
connected and interesting Memoir of her life. The biographi- 
cal sketches of the life of one of the most eloquent and gifted 
female writers of the nineteenth century, thus united in one 
volume, will be peculiarly acceptable."— Pliil. Christ, Observer, 
"Mr. M. W. Dodd, writes a friend, has opportunely brought 
out a new and beautiful edition of the Life of Charlotte Eliza- 
beth. Its intrinsic value and interest are too widely known 
to need our commendation ; but this edition is rendered doubly 
attractive by a portrait, engraved expressly for it, and said to 
he remarkably accurate. We have, with this, a bold auto- 
graph, in very much such a hand as might be expected from 
one who wrote so much and so well."— Newark Daily Ad- 
vertiser. 

" It is a beautiful book, and presents a complete biography 
of a truly pious and remarkable woman, whose excellent 
writings have interested and benefitted thousands, on both 
sides of the Atlantic, and are destined to be a lasting blessing 
to the Church and to the world." — Baptist Register. 

" A new and beautiful edition of this work, with additional 
matter of interest, which will be sought by the many ad- 
mirers of that gifted and distinguished writer," — Neio York 
Observer. 

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PURITAN HEROES; 

Or, Sketches of their Character and Times. By Joh?? 
Stoughton. With an Introductory Letter by Joel, 
Hawes, D.D. 

"This is a welt-printed duodecimo volume, wherein is given a series 
of admirable sketches of those noble minded men whose /enunciations 
of existing glaring evils subjected them to so great a degree of suffering 
End calumniation. The present volume is not a continuous nor a prosy 
history. It is more ; for while the best and standard authorities, old* 
MSS., and curious tracts, have been consulted in its compilation, \\ 
abounds with vivid and life like pictures of the principal characters 
and events in the time of the Puritans and Nonconformists, No portion 
of English History can be more interesting than this, and none better 
de erves deep and earnest study." — JV- Y. Tribvue. 

"The perusal of this volume has awakened in our heart more than 
our former love for the Puritans of the olden times, ami given us a 
burning desire that every American citizen may possess, individually, 
as intense a regard for the memory of those men whose principles, re- 
lined like gold in the fires of intolerance and persecution, laid the 
foundation on which the glorious superstructure of fiiw Temple of 
Liberty has been erected. The pen of Stoughton has given to these 
records of Puritan days aM Ihe vividness, power, and glory of life, and 
Mr. Codd has published them in a style of beamy and eieganee worthy 
of much commendation." — Albany Spectator. 

'"The author has evidently written so as to adapt his style to thf 
young, and thereby secure their attention to the toils and struggles oj 
ihe early advocates of Truth, then imperfectly known, against ecclesi- 
astical domination and spiritual tyranny. This we hare no doubt he 
will have accomplished. The book is "one of the most readable that 
has been issued from the religious press for years. We mean that it 
possesses a eapiivation, both from the style and the subject, which is- 
rarely found." — Methodist Protestant. 

"This book commemorates, in a thrilling and powerful manner, some 
of the greatest spirits of perhaps the most interesting period of British 
history. It shows us the struggles and heaviness of the Uee spirit as it 
was coming forth to ripen upon the earth. It is history, the most inter- 
esting — but not continuous history-. It is highly and most justly recom- 
mended by Dr. Hawes," — Jllhany Express. 

''This work relates to a period when great truths were struggling hits* 
birth— when soul-liberty was asserted and maintained at t he expense 
of fortune, reputation, friends, everything :— a liberty which has* Jong 
blessed our happy land; and which is extending a like koon to other 
aations. ,r — Tlie Trojan. 

"This book is of decided interest. The times to which it relates ; 
fne characters it describes } the stirring events which it sketches ; and 
the noble sentiments which it illustrates, lend to it a peculiar charm." 
— Biblical Repository. 

"The volume before us gives an admirable insight into the character 
and times of the Puritans. It is not a dry history, like Real's : it is a 
spirit-stirring review of the men and the age. in which every character 
and every scene lives before us. Here we may worship* wi. i 'the 
Islington Congregation* in the woods : here we may follow Barren and 
Greenwood, and Perry, to the gallows: here we may witness th em- 
barkation of the Pilgrim Fathers : here we may sit by the death-bt of 
Owen, and Baxter, and Howe; and walk among the graves of me; 3f 
whom the world is not worthy,"— The Independent. 



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AN EARNEST MINISTRY, 
The Want of the Times. By John Angell James. With 
an Introduction by Rev. J. B. Condit, D.D., of New- 
ark, N. J. 

"There is a power in the very title of this book. It strikes home to 
the convictions of every mind that is wakeful to the condition and wants 
of the church. ' An Earnest Ministry.' The ear tingles with the sound ; 
it stirs up thought ; it lingers in the memory ; it turns into prayer. 

" ' Has the evangelical pulpit lost, and is it likely to lose any of its 
power V is the question with which the veteran preacher and author 
commences his discussion. In the progress of his own earnest mind 
through the several stages of this subject, he begins with the ministry 
of the Apostles, linding his theme in it; examines the nature of ear- 
nestness, and shows its appropriateness in him who handles the word 
of life, in respect to its matter, manner, and practice ; illustrates his 
points by numerous quotations and biographical notices ; and from the 
whole, gathers motives of great power to bear on the conscience of the 
professional reader. 

"We wish that we could lay a copy on the table of every pastor, and 
put it into the portmanteau of every missionary in the land : we should 
feel quite sure that the Sabbath following, at least, would bear witness 
to its effect; and we should hope for still more enduring results. And 
we could scarcely imagine a more useful appropriation of money, than 
would be made by supplying the young men of our own Theological 
Seminaries, with each a copy of this exhibition of an 'earnest minis- 
try.' " — JVt Y. Observer. 

"We read this work with the greatest interest. A more impressive, 
truth-telling, pungent appeal to the ministry, we have never met with. 
This noble, stirrinjr. effort to infuse new life and energy into the minis- 
try cannot be too highly praised. Without attempting an analysis of 
its contents, we beg to assure our brethren, that of all useful and able 
productions of this author, this is by far the most useful and able. 
There are hints, and appeals, and principles in it, of incalculable im- 
portance, and of most awakening interest." — JV. Y. Evangelist. 

"Every work of his we have read meets an exigency — in other 
words, is opportune to the state of the Church, and show3 profound 
thought, thorough investigation, and withal, is given in a chaste and 
vigorous style. This last volume in no sense falls behind— there is a 
clearness, a comprehension, and a power in it, which makes it com- 
pare with anything he has written ; and throughout it is an illustration 
of the very earnestness he commends. Dr. Condit of Newark, has 
written a very judicious introduction to the volume. We feel that 
Mr. James may well be taken by young men in Theological training, 
and ministers generally, as their oracle on the importance of earnest- 
ness in the ministry." — Christian Intelligencer. 

" His specimens and illustrations, drawn from the most eminent divines 
of ancient and modern days, and of various countries, are extremely apt 
and interesting. By the method he has pursued, Mr. J. has given us a 
kind of biographical library of the ministry, in such a manner as to im- 
press their excellencies upon the memory, and to inspire a wish to imi- 
tate them. The work is richly worthy of the perusal of the class fo* 
whom it is specially designed." — Christian Review. 

"Not to make a book, but to do good, seems to have been the wholes 
object in view. All our ministers, especially the younger, should give 
this book a reading, and we believe its circulation generally among oui 
people would be productive of great benefit to the whole Church."- 
Methodist Pulpit. 10 



Books Published and for Sale by M. W. Dodd. 



THE ATTRACTION OF THE CROSS. 

The Attraction of the Cross, designed to illustrate the 
leading Truths, Obligations and Hopes of Christianity 
By Gardiner Spring, D.D. 12mo. Fourth edition. 

1 'We are not surprised to hear that Mr. Dodd, the publisher, has al- 
ready issued the third edition of the Attraction of the Cross, by the Rer. 
Dr. Spring. It is the ablest and most finished production of its author, 
and will undoubtedly take its place in that most enviable position in the 
family, as a volume of standard reading, to be the comfort of the aged 
and the guide of the young. We commend it as one of the most valua- 
ble issues of the press." — A T . Y Observer. 

u This is no ordinary, every-day volume of sermons, but the rich, 
ripe harvest of a cultivated mind — the result of long and systematio 
devotion to the proper work of the Christian ministry. We regard Dr. 
Spring as one of the most accomplished preachers of the country. We 
never heard him preach a weak discourse ; and whenever he appears 
from the press, it is with words of wisdom and power. A careful perusal 
of this admirable book has afforded us great pleasure. We do not won* 
der to find it so soon in a third edition. It will have a lasting reputa- 
tion." — Baptist Memorial 

u This volume, which we announced two weeks ago, and which we then 
predicted would prove to be the most excellent and valuable work yet 

written by Dr. Spring, has more than equalled our expectations 

We trust that every family in our land vill read this precious work, 
which illustrates so beautifully and attractively the leading truths, ob- 
ligations and hopes of Christianity, as reflected from the Cross of 
Christ." — Albany Spectator. 

" We mistake if this neatly-printed volume does not prove one of the 
most attractive religious works of the day. It presents the practical 
truths of religion, which all ought to know, free from the spirit of sect- 
arianism or controversy. The book is prepared for permanent use, and 
bids as fair, perhaps, as any book of the kind in our times, to live and 
speak long after the author shall have gone to test the realities he has 
so eloquently described." — Journal of Commerce. 

■■ Dr. Spring's new work, which we had occasion recently to announce, 
is very highly commended elsewhere. A New- York letter in the Boston 
Traveller thus introduces it to notice:— 'A new work of Dr. Spring 
li The Attraction of the Cross," has been published by M. W. Dodd, of 
this city. , . . u The Attraction of the Cross" is destined to live among 
the very best productions of the church with which its respected author 
is connected. The style is remarkably pure, the arrangements of the 
topics lucid and methodical, and the arguments addressed with great 
force to the reason and conscience. It will stand by the side of i( Dod- 
dridge's Rise and Progress," " Wilberforce's View," or the u Way ot 
Life," in the libraries of future generations.' " — Newark Daily Adv. 

"None will wonder .at the rare success which this volume has won. 
who 1 we read it. For comprehensiveness of views, beauty of style and 
excellence and fervor of devotional feeling, few works hav Lately ap- 
peared that surpass it." — New-York Evangelist. 

" The grand relations of the Cross, its holy influences, its comforts and 
its triumphs, are here exhibited in a manner cheering to the heart of 
the Christian. And the perusal of this book will, we venture to say 
greatly assist and comfort the children of God. . . ."—Presbyterian 

9 



Books Published and for Sale by M. W. Dodd. 

MACKNIGHT'S EPISTLES. 

A NEW LITERAL TRANSLATION 
FROM THE ORIGINAL GREEK. 

OF ALL THE 

APOSTOLICAL EPISTLES. 

WITH A 

COMMENTARY AND NOTES, 

Philological, Critical. Explanatory, and Practical. 

TO WHICH IS ADDED 

A HISTORY OF THE LIFE OF THE APOSTLE PAUL 

BY JAMES MAC KNIGHT, D.D., 

AUTHOR OF A HARMONY OF THE GOSPELS, ETC. 

A New Edition, to which is prefixed an Account of the Life 
of the Author, 



KNAPP'S THEOLOGY. 
LECTURES 

ON 

CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY. 

BY 
GEORGE CHRISTIAN KNAPP, D.D., 

PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF HALLE. 

TRANSLATED EY LEONARD WOODS, J UN., D.D., PRESIDENT OP 
BOWDOIN COLLEGE, BRUNSWICK, MAINE. 

Third American edition, reprinted from the last London 
edition. 

11 



Books Published and for Sale by M\ W. Dodd. 



CRUDEN'3 COMPLETE CONCORDANCE. 



A COMPLETE CONCORDANCE 

TO THE 

HOLY SCRIPTURES 

OF THE 

OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT; 

OR, A 

DICTMAEY IM ALPHABETICAL tt'DEX TO THE BIBLE : 

Very useful lo all Christians who seriously read and study the 
inspired wri tings. 

IX TWO PARTS: 

CONTAINING, 

I. The Appellative or Common Words in so full and large a manner, 
that any verse may be readily found by looking for any material word 
in i f . In this part the various significations of the principal words are 
{riven ; by which the true meaning of many passages of Scripture is 
shown: an account of several Jewish Customs and Ceremonies is also 
added, which may serve to illiKtrnte many porta of Scripture. 

II. The Proper Names in the Scr: [/lures. To this partis prefixed a 
Table, containing the s ; gnincation of the words in the original lan- 
guages from which they are derived. 

TO WHICH IS ADDED 

A CONCORDANCE TO THE BOOKS CALLED 
APOCRYPHA. 

The whole digested in an easy and regular method: which, together 
with the various signitications and other improvements now added, ren- 
ders it more useful than any book of the kind hitherto published. 

BY ALEXANDER CRUDEN, M.A. 

From the Tenth London Edition, carefully revised and corrected by ike 
Holy Scrijtuns. 

TO WHICH IS ADDED 

AN ORIGINAL LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 

u Ever since the first publication of Cruden's Concordance, in 1736, it 
has maintained the acknowledged reputation of being the very best 
work of the kind in the English language. Indeed, no other has ever 



Books Published and for Sale hy M. W. Dodd. 



deserved to be even compared to it. It maintains its superiority still; 
and probably will ever hold that pre-eminence. 

" We speak of the complete edition, which is here presented to the 
public. A work in the market called Cruden's Concordance being only 
a compilation from the complete work, and wanting many of its most 
valuable features. To abridge this work of Cruden. as it came from his 
finishing hand, would be to make it nearly valueless to ninety-nine of 
every hundred who need a concordance. And of all aids to an accurate 
understanding of the Bible, we believe Cruden's complete Concordance 
to be the best." 

"Dear Sir: — I have carefully compared your edition of Cruden's 
Concordance with a fine English edition, and find it true to the original. 
Knowing, from many years' use, the value of Cruden, 1 cannot but be 
glad that you have thus presented a cheap edition of his invaluable 
work to the American public. I find in your copy an unimpaired, com- 
plete Cruden. This is not the case with another American edition, 
published last year. In that, great liberties are taken with the original 
work — such as abridgments omissions, &c, greatly reducing the 
nmrmnt of its contents, and in the same proportion diminishing its 
value. A student of the Bible needs a concordance in which he can 
find every passage he wants. Your edition is just such an one." 

"We know, from long use, this full and admirable reprint of the 
original Cruden's Concordance ; and we think that the whole value of 
the work depends upon its being complete and entire; and that its 
great value would be impaired seriously by the omission of a single 
word or reference." 

"The high price at which this gigantic work has been necessarily 
sold hitherto, has prevented thousands from purchasing it. A complete 
edition, with the very latest corrections, with the notes of the author 
and every line of the London edition faithfully given, is now published, 
as above, for only two dollars. It is the best commentary on the 
Bible that was ever made : it is worth more to the diligent and devout 
student than the whole of Henry or Scott, or any other critic, and we 
would part with all our commentaries rather than with Cruden's Con- 
cordance. It ought to be in every intelligent family, and we presume 
that the low price at which it is now sold will be the means of putting 
it into the hands of many who would not otherwise have obtained it." 

15 



Books Published and for Sale by M. W. Dodd. 

PROFESSOR ALDEFS WORKS. 



THE OLD STONE HOUSE; 

Or, the Patriot's Fireside. By Joseph Alden, D.D. 

"This is not only a capital book for boys, but suggests sentiments 
not unworthy the attention of children of a larger growth. In it, the 
spirit of true patriotism is finely illustrated by the examples of such 
men as John Jay, Benjamin Franklin, Governor Morris, and our immor- 
tal Washington. To those of our young friends who are looking for- 
ward to the day when they may become statesmen, we would cor- 
dially commend this little work, as an agreeable introduction to the 
study of the constitution and history of the government under which it 
is their high privilege to live." — Newark Daily Advertiser. 

"The object of this volume is unique among books for children; 
namely, to convey information of some of the early fathers of the 
state and the foundation of the Government, which is done in a simple, 
intelligible way, and calculated, from the form of conversation, to ar- 
rest the attention. Its purpose and execution are highly commenda- 
ble." — Literary World. 

"Professor Alden's juvenile books are, in many respects, patterns of 
publications for the young. They have a purity, simplicity and gravity 
of style, that must do much towards forming mental and moral charac- 
teristics on the best model." — Religious Recorder. 

" Under the guise of a familiar, pleasant tale of the Revolutionary 
era, Dr. Alden has here presented a condensed and most excellent com- 
pend of the elementary principles of the science of government, and 
our early political history. It strikes us as one of the most useful, as 
well as able and ingenious of the author's many valuable juvenile 
work3, and will be a good bcok for the family, and not less for the 
school-room." — JV. Y. Evangelist. 

EXAMPLE OF WASHINGTON. 

"A little volume of great value. The author does not pretend to 
give the example of Washington in his entire life, but employs the 
weight of his great name to arrest and fix the attention of the "young 
upon some of the essential excellencies of character that were so fully 
illustrated in that unequalled specimen of human greatness— the prom- 
inent points in the work being the character of Washington as a re- 
ligious man. The book should be in the hands of every youth in the 
land." 

REVIVAL IN SCHOOL. 

" This book is a good one for parents, teachers, and children. Some 
of the difficult questions in Christian causistry are here indirectly solved 
in a very intelligible manner; and the touchstone of piety is skilfully 
applied. No Sabbath school or juvenile library should be without it." 
— Christian Mirror. 



Just published, in size and style corresponding with the 
above, and to match, " The Pilgrim Fathers." Though 
this does not bear its author's name, yet no reader of Prof. 
Alden's admirable books will be at a loss to determine from 
whence it comes. 
20 



SABBATH SCHOOL 
BOOK DEPOSITORY 



BEING SOLE AGENT IN NEW YORK FOR THE SALE OF THE 
PUBLICATIONS OF THE 

MASSACHUSETTS SUNDAY SCHOOL SOCIETY, 

We have at all times on hand a full assortment of their publi- 
cations, in quantities which we furnish at wholesale and retail 
at the Society's prices in Boston. In addition to their valua- 
ble series of Library Books, they publish a series of Question 
Books, for Sunday Schools and Bible Classes, which are un- 
surpassed, if equalled, by any now in use. 

In connection with the above, we have a large assortment 
of books published by ourselves and other individual pub- 
lishers, suitable for Sunday School Libraries. 

The above, with the publications of the Tract Societies, 
and other Sunday School Societies, which are furnished by 
us at Societies' prices, give us unusual facilities for filling 
orders for anything needed for Sunday Schools. 



SUNDAY SCHOOL LYRE. 

Words and Music chiefly new. 

COMPILED AND COMPOSED 

By THOMAS HASTINGS, 

AUTHOR OF VARIOUS MUSICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTIONS. 

The superior character of this work, for one of its kind, 
and the very low price at which it is furnished, commends 
it to the special attention of those connected with Sunday 
Schools. 



M. W. DODD, 
Jpublteljcr anh Bookseller, 



IX ADDITION TO 



una ©wit iPTOM(DM i ii©m 



HAS ALWAYS ON HAND 



AMERICAN AND FOREIGN WORKS, 

IN 

RELIGIOUS, THEOLOGICAL, 
STANDARD & MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE, 

AND 13 

CONSTANTLY RECEIVING NEW WORKS, 

AS THEY ARE ISSUED FROM THE PRESS, 

ALL OF WHICH HE WILL SELL, AT 

WHOLESALE OR RETAIL, 

ON' THE MOST FAVORABLE TERMS 

ORDERS FOR PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LIBRARIES 

RESPECTFULLY SOLICITED. 



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